Earl of Shadows

by Jacqueline Reiter

  The Duke of York rose unsteadily. ‘General Essen, the campaign in Holland did not fall entirely upon Russian shoulders. We British, too, took many casualties. We should all be glad most of our army has returned safely to fight on another occasion.’

  The memory of Colonel Dickson being felled from his horse by an enemy sabre rose like a poisonous bubble in John’s wine-addled mind; Colonel Cholmondeley, too, cut off from the rest of the brigade along with 300 of his men, all of whom were captured in the darkness and carried off as prisoners of war. The fact much of this had happened in the confusion after John had been carried off the field did not help. He could still hear the screaming, and the scent of blood and powder filled his nose. This was what defeat felt like; it felt like emptiness, discord and fear.

  He hastily downed his glass and refilled it. He wanted oblivion, if only for one night or even one hour – anything to escape the knowledge that his military career might be over. William would never allow him to serve abroad again; the spent ball to John’s shoulder had killed any chance of that.

  ****

  John’s carriage drove him the five-minute journey home. A footman had to support him in staggering down the compartment steps, drunk as John was on the commander-in-chief’s wine. Although it was late, the oil lamps hanging outside his door still burned. The first-floor windows were ablaze with candlelight. The sound of voices and laughter drifted down as John hammered a sinuous route upstairs to the drawing room.

  The room was full of people, his brother’s friends mostly. Men like Lord Mulgrave, John Villiers, Tom Steele, George Rose. Dundas sat by the window, looking exhausted, but still finding it in him to laugh at a joke someone had made. Some of William’s younger friends were here too, the new bloods recruited since the start of the French conflict: Lord Hawkesbury, thin and gangling, and George Canning, one of William’s cleverest and deepest admirers.

  In the middle of it all sat John’s wife and brother. Mary was evidently enjoying her unfamiliar role as hostess. Her face had a youthful pinkness to it John had not seen for some time. She leaned forwards to touch William’s arm gently with her fan, as though to draw a response to something she had said. William was laughing. Despite the military and diplomatic setbacks on the continent his legendary optimism apparently remained unshaken. He looked thin but healthier, and happier, than John could remember.

  None of them noticed John’s entrance, as though they were a thousand miles from the conflict tearing Europe apart. John bore the stink of that conflict from his boots to his powdered hair. He could still hear the shouts of the French cavalry and the screams of his men. The shapeless anger he had felt since landing at Yarmouth finally coalesced into something specific. How could they sit here, when 12,000 Allied soldiers had died? How could they laugh, when John’s career, his independence, his reputation, had dissolved into nothing in the relentless Dutch rain?

  He slammed the door. The impact of wood against wood snuffed several candles in their mirrored sconces. Mary turned, arching her eyebrows, and a look of caution crossed the faces of everyone but William, who took John’s hand. ‘My dear brother, you see we have formed a welcoming committee for you. Lady Chatham told me you would be home late but I wanted very much to take you by the hand again.’ The tone of the silence registered at last. His smile faded. ‘What is amiss?’

  William’s concerned face swam like a blur before John’s eyes. John glanced over at his wife; Mary’s gaze was stern and appraising. Only the thought of seeing her again had got him through the last few ignominious weeks of the campaign, but disappointment had tainted everything, even their reunion. ‘I see you’ve taken the rabble in.’

  There was a hiss of indrawn breath. The blood drained from Mary’s face. ‘John!’

  ‘You’re not well,’ William frowned. He reached out to place a hand on John’s injured right shoulder, and John recoiled with a cry of pain.

  ‘Don’t touch me!’

  William held up his hands in a backing-off gesture. Mary hissed, ‘John, for goodness’ sake go to bed.’

  ‘Mary is right,’ William murmured. ‘You must be exhausted. Your guests—’

  ‘They are not my guests,’ John interrupted, coldly. ‘They are yours. But it matters little, for Major-General the Lord Chatham is home. I suppose you are longing to hear my stories of bloodshed and defeat.’ Nobody moved. John’s mouth curled. ‘I assure you it makes a fine tale for a winter’s evening.’

  ‘I think we ought to leave,’ Dundas said. Steele and Mulgrave rose, but John barred their way.

  ‘No, stay a while. I long to hear what has been happening while I have been spilling my blood for my country.’

  ‘And we are grateful,’ William interposed, to deflect the flow of John’s drunken ire. ‘We are glad to see you safe.’

  It was a singularly ill-judged statement in John’s current mood. ‘Well, that’s never been much of a concern for you, has it?’

  William looked as though John had kicked him in the stomach. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘My well-being,’ John snapped. ‘Although I suppose you do have a right to be concerned about it. If I were to die, you would go to the Lords as Earl of Chatham and that would be the end of your ministry, would it not?’ The horrified look on William’s face made John laugh. ‘It sometimes gives me great pleasure to know I have more power than Fox to bring down your government, simply by taking a knife and—’

  ‘You’re drunk,’ William gasped. John leaned back and addressed the plaster mouldings on the ceiling.

  ‘Hark at the pot calling the kettle black!’

  ‘If you really meant what you said then it is long past time you got some rest.’

  John moved closer to his brother until their faces were only inches apart. He could see the doubt in William’s grey eyes, the freckles across the bridge of his nose, the smudge of brown hair at his temples beneath the powder. ‘Maybe I am drunk, but I still know what has been going on. You, Dundas and Windham, sending good troops to Belle-Isle, Ferrol and Minorca. What did we get? A load of drunken militiamen, enough to stave off the reckoning for six weeks in Holland and no more.’ Out of the corner of his eye John saw Dundas rise, a concerned look on his wine-reddened face. ‘Perhaps you never meant me to return at all. Perhaps you sent me on a doomed campaign to dispose of your embarrassment of a brother. Tell me you were not disappointed when you heard that spent musket ball had not killed me.’

  ‘If you wish to insult me,’ William snarled, ‘for God’s sake be consistent.’

  ‘If I wished to insult you,’ John snapped back, ‘I should point to that corner of the room …’ at Canning and Hawkesbury, watching anxiously, ‘… and ask why you spend so much time in the company of pretty young men. Perhaps it is the same reason you and my wife were getting on so well just now?’

  John’s words echoed in the deep silence that greeted them. William went white. All of a sudden Mary pushed herself out of her chair, crossed the room in three long strides, and gave her husband a resounding slap. The sharp sound of flesh meeting flesh echoed like a whip-crack.

  ‘Leave this room,’ she said. ‘Now.’

  John’s vision was fuzzy with wine, but the hard emotion on Mary’s face shone through his drunken fog like a beacon. He put a hand to his smarting cheek and said nothing.

  Mary’s voice rose a pitch; a touch of colour infused her face. ‘You have insulted me, and just about everyone else in this room, quite enough. Go!’

  Behind Mary the others were arranged in various awkward poses, trying very hard not to be there. In the middle of the room, as bloodless as though he, not John, had been struck in the face, was William. His expression was full of hurt and astonishment, with a nascent hint of anger. John did not wait to see whether that anger would become anything more concrete. He gave Mary a lopsided look and turned to leave.

  He paused in the doorway. His frustrated ambition still seared through his heart like acid and it was this, rather than drunken anger, that gave his wo
rds a new lucidity. ‘Only now do I realise how much I have suffered from being your elder brother. Any other military man of my rank would have been employed in battle ten times over. Why not me? Because it took you that long to overcome your fear that I might die and throw you into the Lords. I am the cross you must bear every day, Will. I know now that you are mine.’

  He climbed the stairs and staggered into his dressing room. St Aubin offered to take his coat as he went past but John ignored him. Sobriety was creeping up on him, cold, grey and unforgiving, drawing him into a black hole from which he did not know how to escape.

  He went to the shaving mirror over the dresser. His long chin was unshaven, his heavy-lidded blue eyes rimmed with red. There were disappointed grooves on either side of his mouth and between his black eyebrows. The older he got the more he looked like his father. The thought did not please him in the least.

  ****

  The guests left shortly after John’s departure, each kissing Mary’s hand in subdued farewell. Mary could not meet anyone’s eye, least of all her brother-in-law’s. He hesitated before taking his leave. ‘Might I be of service?’

  ‘Thank you, but no,’ Mary said. ‘John will be well enough after a night’s rest.’

  Why had she invited William and the others? She had truly thought she was doing the right thing, and William had been so keen to come. She had assumed John’s return to the army would allow him to forget the past. She had hoped serving abroad would have given him a new confidence in himself. She should have known better.

  She hesitated a moment outside her husband’s dressing room, then knocked. There was no response. She waited a space then opened the door. John sat by the dresser. He still wore his regimentals; the gold braid winked in the light from the candles as he turned fractionally to glance over his shoulder.

  ‘John,’ she said. He did not reply. She came to stand behind him, close enough to smell the wine on his breath and hear his uneven breathing. His gloved hands were knotted in his lap and he seemed to be waiting for the recriminations to begin. Mary had fully intended to tell him what she thought of his shocking behaviour, but faced with the naked vulnerability in his hunched shoulders she found she could not do it. ‘You should have a glass of water. There’s a carafe by the bed.’ When John did not move, Mary went to the bedchamber next door and poured him a glass herself. She pressed it into his hand. ‘Here. Drink.’

  He obeyed, keeping his eyes down. She moved a chair next to his, gathered her skirts and sat down in a rustle of silk. John cradled the empty glass in his hands; he seemed fascinated by the refraction of the candlelight in its smooth, curved surface. Mary spoke again, with a tremble of anguish.

  ‘I have spent six weeks waiting for you, counting every day, every hour, every minute of our separation, knowing every one brought me closer to your return. Now you are home, and I find myself wishing you had stayed away longer.’

  At last John raised his eyes to meet hers. The pain and disappointment in their blue depths tore through the remainder of her righteous indignation. Tears spilled down her cheeks and John raised a hand to wipe them away. She tensed at his touch, but the crushed expression on his face in response brought the last of her defences crashing down. She moved across onto his lap and laid her head against his chest. She heard his sigh of relief, and felt his fingers trembling as he raised them to stroke her hair.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he murmured, thickly.

  ‘I truly hoped for victory.’ Mary raised her head and looked at him. ‘So did William.’

  ‘Holland was meant to be my opportunity. It was nothing but the grave for several thousand men.’

  His eyes stared, glassily, at something only he could see. The whiteness of his face took on a yellow, sickly sheen. Mary reached out a hand, then let it fall back into her lap. She had no idea what he was going through; she had not seen soldiers die; she had not been the one to give the orders that had led to their deaths.

  The distance between them felt unbridgeable.

  ‘You had a command,’ was all she could think of to say. ‘You were commended in the despatches.’

  ‘I did not embarrass myself, if that is what you mean.’ He hesitated, then said in a strained, uneven voice, ‘All I wanted was a chance to prove myself worthy.’

  Mary listened to him with a cold sense of dread. She had feared this self-consuming bitterness more than anything. ‘William thinks highly of you, John.’

  ‘Then he must have changed his mind since ’94,’ John said. Mary remained silent. There was nothing she could tell him that she had not tried to say before.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  October 1800

  Dusk was falling when John arrived at Woodley after a long journey on Berkshire’s pot-holed roads. His host met him on the steps of the house. Henry Addington was Speaker of the House of Commons and a childhood friend. John liked Addington very much: he was a handsome, modest man whose innate sense of fairness had allowed him to excel in the Speaker’s Chair. ‘Lord Chatham. I trust the journey was a good one?’

  ‘My coachman nearly broke an axle near Woking, but we made good time once the horses were calmed.’ The two men shook hands. ‘I am afraid I cannot stay more than a night. My regiment has just arrived in Winchester and I must join them tomorrow.’

  ‘And yet you took Woodley in your way? It is good to see you, but I take it you are not here on my account?’

  ‘It is always a pleasure to spend time with you,’ John protested, and Addington smiled.

  ‘I knew you would be too polite to say so. Your brother is in the garden. I think you will find him vastly improved.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ John said. Before William had left London, he had told John how badly he was sleeping and how ill he felt. William was accustomed to remain at his desk long after ordinary mortals would have taken to their sickbed; for him to complain about his health was uncharacteristic and troubling.

  The political situation did not help. After the failure of the Dutch campaign Austria and Russia had both broken alliance with Britain. At home the harvest had failed yet again; the price of bread spiked and panicked magistrates reported rumours of armed insurrections everywhere. Ireland had rebelled in 1798, and still smouldered sullenly. An Act of Union had been rushed through, but only corruption and bribery had ensured its passing and the Cabinet remained deeply divided over whether to include Ireland’s Catholics in the political arrangements.

  John followed Addington down to the ornamental lake, his boots crunching on the gravelled path. William sat on a bench beneath a willow tree. From behind all John could see was a tall, spare figure wearing a high-crowned hat and grey garrick.

  Addington placed a hand on William’s shoulder. ‘Pitt, you have a visitor.’

  ‘Who is it?’ William sounded fractious, almost frightened. A treacherous memory sliced through John’s mind of their father during one of his mental breakdowns, bursting into tears at the prospect of having to receive even the most innocuous of well-wishers.

  He quashed the memory with difficulty, took a deep breath and stepped into William’s line of sight. ‘Well now, Will. I trust our friend Addington has been treating you well?’

  William had lost the gauntness about the jawline that spoke so eloquently of countless missed meals, but his eyes were dull and his hands shook noticeably even lying idle in his lap. It was hard to tell from his distracted expression whether he was relieved or dismayed by his visitor’s identity. ‘I have no complaints. Apart, of course, from the fact he will not allow me more than a bottle of wine at dinner, and that shared with him.’

  So someone had finally put a stop to William’s over-indulgent use of wine. Addington looked awkward and said, as though to excuse an impoliteness, ‘I gave Sir Walter Farquhar my word on the matter.’

  ‘Sir Walter Farquhar is a meddlesome old fool,’ William said, without rancour, but the effort of remaining light-hearted was too much. His chest heaved as though he struggled to breathe. ‘And you?
What brings you to Woodley? I hope you have not made the journey to see me?’

  ‘I’m passing through on my way to Winchester to join the 4th.’

  ‘Are you not tired to death of military life? You’ve spent the whole summer at Swinley marching your men up and down.’

  John was sure William had not meant to speak dismissively, but “marching men up and down” rankled. He could not help but wonder – again – how a man who held the fate of nations in his hands could be so naive. Looking closer at his brother’s pouched eyes and grey complexion, John wondered whether it was merely William’s method of grappling with a situation that had spiralled beyond his ability to control or understand. The stab of pity John experienced at the thought unsettled him. He had never pitied his brother before.

  Beneath his coat, William’s body trembled like his hands. It could have been from cold but John did not think so. Just in case he said, ‘Shall we go indoors? Darkness is drawing in.’

  ‘Yes,’ Addington agreed. ‘I’ve had a fire laid in the library, and it is time for dinner. My cook has prepared a haunch of beef for us.’

  William blanched at the mention of food, but he nodded and picked up his ivory-headed cane. John helped him to his feet and supported his arm as they walked uphill. By the time they got to the house William was out of breath again, and John found his pity turning, once more, to anxiety.

  At dinner, however, William’s demeanour changed. When Addington’s wife Ursula greeted him, he straightened and forced a smile. He ate very little but he was cheerful enough, and if John had not seen William by the lake he would have believed him fully recovered. But it was a mask, and before dinner was over it started to slip. While Ursula spoke about the Addington boys’ latest exploits at Winchester School, William apparently stopped listening to the conversation completely, and when Addington tried to reel him back in he had to have the past few comments repeated.