The Fallen Angels

by Bernard Cornwell

  “Will you marry me?”

  The question came so suddenly, in just the same, bantering tone of voice that he had been using about the old sinking barge, that Campion was startled. It was as if the cold, lapping lake water had suddenly risen into the pavilion.

  She opened her eyes.

  He smiled down at her, a quizzical look on his face.

  She had been waiting for the question since January. Now, suddenly, with the question finally asked, she seemed struck dumb.

  His fingers brushed her forehead, stroking her gently. “You don’t have to answer me now. I’ve thought long about it, my dear, long and hard, and it is only fair that you should do the same.” The words sounded stilted. She supposed such words always did.

  She sat up, driving his hand away, and turned to face him. “Lewis?”

  “Campion?”

  She was not sure what she wanted to ask. She had thought, when she had thought about this expected moment, to say “yes” on the answering beat of the question, yet now, quite suddenly, she found her practical, sensible mind wanting to probe, to explore, and she shook her head uncertainly. “Marry?”

  He smiled. “People do it, you know.”

  She smiled back. She wished there was not custard on his moustache.

  She thought of her father and his wishes. She should marry. She looked at Culloden’s pink face, a hint of fleshiness about the eyes, and she supposed that her father was right. This man, this solid, dependable man would hold Lazen against an uncertain future.

  He took her hesitation for doubt. He sat up straighter and drew his knees up as hers were drawn up, making the barge rock slightly on its muddy bed. “I don’t want to spoil your life, I wish only to make you happy.” He touched both ends of his moustache. “I’ll leave the regiment, of course, that’s why I’m going to London, to sell the commission. Lazen is your life, it has to be, and even when Toby is back we’ll live close by.” He shrugged. He seemed as uncertain again as the first days after they met. She thought of the bones on Two Gallows Hill. She thought of her father decrying certainty. She thought of LC and CL traced scarlet on a mirror.

  He smiled. “I know how you feel about London. I wouldn’t ask you to live there, and…”

  “Lewis!”

  He stopped, surprised.

  She smiled, shaking her head. She had listened to him and felt a sudden pity for him. He had done all that he could to make this day special, to bring her to a magic place, to make it a day to be treasured in her memory, and then he had seen that she wanted practical, sensible proposals instead of a moment that should be wreathed in gold as splendid as that which circled the Lazen crest on the boat’s prow. She took a deep breath. Her decision, of course, had been made weeks before when Cartmel Scrimgeour had visited the castle and drawn up the marriage agreement. This conversation in the barge was merely a polite formality and she must play her part as nobly as Lewis. The words seemed to need a great effort, but she managed to give her answer a smiling certainty. “Of course, Lewis, of course!”

  He stared at her.

  She smiled. “Yes!”

  “You mean?”

  “I mean yes! Yes!” He gaped at her in amazement, and she laughed. “Did you expect me to say no?”

  “I thought…”

  “Thought what?”

  “That I am not worthy of you.”

  “Lewis!” She reached for his hands. How could she tell him that it was she who was not worthy, that it was she who had harbored thoughts of such shame that she could scarce admit them to herself? This very morning, when her father had given her Toby’s letter, had not her first thought been of the Gypsy? “Lewis,” she had to think of what she ought to say in this circumstance. “I shall be most fortunate in you!”

  He took her hands and looked bashfully into her eyes. “I have thought much about it.”

  “I know.”

  “I will do all for our happiness. You do know that?”

  “Of course!” She wondered why it all seemed so unreal.

  He drew her toward him, clumsy on the cushions, and he put his arms about her and kissed her on the mouth.

  She closed her eyes.

  She had never been kissed like this. She had often wondered what it was like and wondered why there was not one single touch of mystery about it. She pushed her lips against his, wondering if the magic came later. His moustache was definitely uncomfortable. It pricked and it tickled. Being nuzzled by a horse was definitely nicer.

  “My dear Campion.” He leaned back from her, reached over her shoulder and pulled the cords of the last curtains, shaking the green cloth down so that it seemed they were in a closed, luminous tent that lay on water. “My dear, dear Campion.”

  He pulled her gently, turning her, stretching her on the cushions and his hands were gentle on her face, on her neck, and he kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her mouth, and she knew he was being gentle and she wondered why she had this terrible, dreadful need to laugh. His kisses pushed her lips onto her teeth. It was uncomfortable, and then she felt his hand slide down to her body. “No, my Lord.”

  He smiled. He stroked her breasts, the silk dress smooth to his touch. “No?”

  She put her own arms about him and pulled him down so that his face was beside hers.

  His hand, denied her breasts, slid to her thighs and she found herself wanting to laugh again. It was so silly! All this fuss over marriage and having children? His hand moved upward and she pushed him away. She smiled. “No.”

  Somewhere in the back of her mind a tall, black haired, blue eyed man laughed at her. She blotted the vision away, angry at herself. She sat up, her hands rearranging her hair. “When I marry, my Lord, I will come to you,” she hesitated, “as you would want your bride to be.” God! She thought, but this is embarrassing! “Besides.” She smiled.

  “Besides what?”

  “The servants! They’ll be thinking the Lord knows what!” She pulled one curtain back and tied its cord.

  He untied it. “Let them think.”

  “No! They shall know we are to be married.” She was tying the cord again. “And they shall know that we are to be married properly.”

  He smiled. “Forgive me.”

  “For what?”

  He shrugged. “Impatience?”

  That embarrassed her, but she knew the proper response. “That’s very good in a husband to be, yes?”

  “I don’t know, I’ve never been one.”

  It was done then, she thought. It had been, she decided, about as bad as she had expected it to be. No worse, but no better either. It had felt odd to be kissed by him, odder still to feel his hand pressing on her body. It was all odd, all rather embarrassing, and all tempting her to unseemly laughter. She wondered whether any of the custard from his moustache was on her mouth, but thought it would be rude to be seen wiping it with a napkin. She looked at him. “I’m very happy, Lewis.” She said it as a test, to see if it was true. She was not sure that it was, but perhaps happiness, like the magic of love, was something that came with time.

  “As you shall ever be.”

  She stared over the water, wondering if her father watched them from the window by his bed. She did not know what to say. The wind ruffled the lake and died. Coots swam red and black by the reeds. She remembered a question that was important on these occasions and smiled at him. “When?”

  He smiled back. “I’m impatient. Soon?”

  She blushed. “There must be preparations.”

  “Preparations?”

  “The tenants have to be fed. Musicians.” She shrugged. “The usual things. A betrothal party to make it proper.” She laughed. “We can have the betrothal party when you come back from London. You can take the invitations with you.”

  “Dear, practical Campion.”

  She wondered if she would ever enjoy being kissed, but at least he had been gentle. She had rather feared that making love would be like a prize-fight.

  The boat unexpectedly lurched, slidi
ng on the shelving mud, and Campion gave a cry of alarm. “Lewis!”

  He laughed. “We’re shipwrecked.”

  “My God, we are!” The barge was canting and moving, sliding into deeper water and she could hear the gurgle of the lake coming between the sprung planks. “We’ll have to swim!”

  “I’ll carry you.”

  “You can’t!”

  He could. Every movement seemed to lurch the pretty barge farther into the depths, but he made her crawl out from the pavilion and then he carried her carefully forward, over the newly painted thwarts, until he could put her feet on the forward seat. The barge seemed to be still again, but half its width was under water. He jumped over the gunwale.

  He shouted with surprise as he sank into the mud, the water bitterly cold and up to his thighs. “Come on!”

  “You’ll drop me!”

  “Never! I’m rescuing you again!”

  She laughed, put a hand on the great, surging prow, a foot on the gunwale, and then half sat, half dropped into his arms. She was laughing, he was laughing, and then he turned, sucking his boot out of the clinging mud and forcing it into the roots of the tall reeds.

  “You’re dropping me!”

  “I’m not!”

  “Careful!”

  He pulled his other boot free. “Stop laughing! You’re shaking me!”

  “It’s fear, not laughter.”

  He forced his way up the bank, through the reeds, stumbling at the very last to fall to his knees, making Campion laugh and shout in alarm, and then he stretched himself out to drop her, almost gently, on the very edge of the park’s grass where it met the swampy bank.

  Behind him, half hidden by the reeds, the gorgeous barge tilted in the water.

  She laughed at him. The front of his clothes was soaked by thick mud. “It’s very romantic, my Lord.”

  He smiled down at her. They were hidden from the house by the tall reeds. He bent his head, kissed her, and before she knew what was happening, his left hand ran strongly down her body from her breasts to her knees, and the shock of it made her gasp and his tongue was between her teeth and then, as swiftly as he had stooped down to her, he lifted his head. His hooded eyes were dark above her. “You will make me very happy, my love.”

  She nodded. She found it hard to say the expected words. “And you me, my Lord.”

  It suddenly did not seem funny anymore. The kiss had been too savage, too quick, too suggestive of that bigger hurdle which lay beyond marriage. She sat up, shivered, and suddenly went utterly still, her eyes huge and fixed on the castle.

  “What is it?” Culloden frowned. Campion had gone white. She sat, one hand at her breast, staring across the corner of the lake as if a ghost walked the castle’s forecourt. Culloden could only see a groom exercising a horse. The man was tall, dressed in black, with long black hair. The groom, Culloden noted with a cavalryman’s eye, rode superbly. He looked back to his bride to be. “What is it?”

  “Nothing.”

  Culloden squeezed her hand. “We should tell your father.”

  “Yes, my Lord.” She knew the Gypsy had seen her. He must have brought Toby’s letter, she thought. She could see his face, a hundred yards away, turned toward them, then the horse pranced, he put his heels back, and rode toward the stables.

  She stood slowly. He was there, and suddenly she knew there would be no happiness for her so long as the tall horseman hovered at the edge of her life. Lord Culloden still frowned at her. “You’re well, my dear?”

  “Yes, my Lord.” She sounded subdued. “I’m well.”

  They walked about the lake, engaged.

  It rained that night. It started slowly, a mere mist that beaded the windows. By nine o’clock the wind was lashing water at Lazen, a seething storm that crashed on the forecourt’s gravel and rattled the doors of the castle.

  Campion and Lord Culloden dined with the Earl. She made herself happy. She told herself that the art of marriage was to fashion contentment from the flawed cloth. She laughed at her father’s familiar stories, smiled at Lord Culloden, and tried to forget that single glimpse across the lake’s corner of the mysterious horseman.

  “The lake will be flooded,” the Earl said. He was drinking brandy with Lord Culloden.

  Campion stood. She went to the window and stared into the turbulent darkness. A shaft of lightning made her jump. It splintered, blue-white, down to Two Gallows Hill and outlined the horror hanging at the gibbet.

  “Can you see the lake?” her father asked.

  But she was not looking. She was staring at the corner of the Long Gallery. She knew that the gallery was unused this night, that its fires were dead, its candles cold, yet a single flame showed in the western window.

  “Campion?”

  “No.” She let the curtain drop, turned, and smiled at her father. “It’s too dark.”

  “Dirty bloody night.” Her father took another glass from Lewis Culloden. “A night for dirty, bloody business, eh? Broomsticks and cauldrons.” He raised the glass. “Your happiness, my children.”

  Campion smiled. She was nervous again, frightened and excited. A hundred hundred times since Christmas she had told herself she was glad that the Gypsy had not been in the gallery that night, told herself she was fortunate to escape, yet now, beckoned by the candle, she forgot the relief. “You’ll forgive me if I retire, father?”

  “So you should, dear. Leave us men together.” He smiled. There were patches of color on his sunken cheeks, put there by the liquor. She kissed him.

  “I’ll ring for your girl?” Culloden asked.

  “No. She’ll be waiting for me.” She gave her betrothed her hand. He kissed it, his moustache prickly.

  Thunder hammered at the castle, rolling over the sky like hogsheads trundled in an attic. Crossing the bridge between the New and Old Houses Campion saw the lightning flicker to ground, showing in its sudden glare the seeping, spreading lake water.

  She passed the door to her rooms. She blushed. She knew she blushed. She should have gone to her rooms and let Edna help her to bed, instead she went to the upper lobby and turned to the Long Gallery’s main door.

  Perhaps Edna had lit the candle. Perhaps a footman had come to fetch something and left the solitary flame burning. The door handle was cold. She pushed it down and went into the room.

  And through her, as sudden and bright as the lightning on the lake, went relief. The Gypsy was there.

  He stood before the Nymph portrait. He turned to look at her and, as if her entrance meant nothing to him, he turned back to the portrait. He had drawn his hair back and tied it with a ribbon.

  She stood watching the Gypsy, her hand on the door handle. She knew she should say something, demand an explanation for his presence, but she seemed dumb.

  He turned to her again. The candle flame was reflected in his oddly light eyes. “Should I be here, my Lady?”

  “No.” They spoke in French.

  “Then I hope my presence doesn’t offend you.” He spoke comfortably, as if to an equal. She did not reply. He stepped back from the portrait and gestured at the western door of the gallery. “Isn’t that room haunted?”

  “So they say.” Still she did not move.

  He smiled. “Your brother says a man was murdered there.”

  “I’ve heard it, yes.”

  “But you don’t believe in ghosts?”

  “Do you?” She said it defiantly. She knew she should send him away, she knew she must play the great lady, but she wanted to talk with him, she wanted to see the candlelight on his thin, superb face, she wanted to hear his voice in her ears.

  He smiled again. “Yes.” He gestured about the room. “I think that everybody who was happy here and everyone who was sad here left part of themselves, don’t you? Would the room be the same if it had been built yesterday?” She said nothing. He half bowed. “I hear I must congratulate you, my Lady, on your own happiness.”

  “Thank you.” She wondered how it was possible to have a conv
ersation like this. She let go of the door handle and walked a few paces toward him. “I think you should go.” It seemed an extraordinarily hard thing to say.

  He stared at her. His smile seemed to suggest that he knew what she had wanted to say. “Yes.”

  Neither moved for a few seconds. If he stepped toward her, Campion thought, then she would step toward him. If he lifted a hand she would lift hers. If he opened his arms she would go to him, and she waited, expecting it, wanting it, and almost moved toward him when his hand did move.

  He picked up the candle. “My Lady?” His voice was soft as velvet, dark as the night. He sounded so strong to her. She said nothing. She was trembling like a colt feeling the bridle for the first time.

  He turned toward her, smiling, and he saw that her lips were parted, her eyes bright, and he thought that at this moment she was even more beautiful than the splendid, smiling woman in the Nymph portrait. He stepped one pace, his own heart beating with the fragility of the moment, when the door opened.

  The Gypsy smothered the candle flame with his hand instantly.

  Edna stood in the light that opened from Campion’s bedroom into the Gallery. The light of a dozen candles flooded from behind her. “My Lady?”

  “Edna?”

  The maid was sleepy. “I thought I heard voices.”

  “I came to find a book.”

  “In the dark?” Edna laughed. “I’ll fetch a candle. Raining something terrible, isn’t it?” She turned back to the room. Campion, like a conspirator, looked to gesture the Gypsy into hiding, but the gallery was empty. Like a cat, like a shadow in a shadow, silent as a dark thing in darkness, he had gone. In less time than a heart fills and empties, he had gone. She felt a sadness, as if he had spoiled a game, and then Edna came back with a flickering candle and asked what book Campion sought.

  “Red leather cover. I’ll manage.”

  But the maid had frowned. “I know I shut that door!” She walked to the gallery’s end where the last door, the door to the haunted room, let in a draft. “It must be the ghost, my Lady.”

  “Yes.”

  “I know I shut it before!” She pulled it hard closed. “There. You’ve got your book, my Lady?”