The Messenger

28

Our passage back to England was largely uneventful. The most unsettling moment came before we set sail, when I visited Lord Varre’s agent in Brussels, who gave me to understand that I was now an enormously wealthy man. Since I had assumed that the amount sent to me a few weeks earlier was the largest portion of what Lord Varre had intended me to have, I was shocked. When I ventured a question regarding the source of this wealth, he said that Lord Varre had left a letter for me. The letter informed me that this was merely a small portion of his own wealth, which he was willing to share with me. These funds came from his alliance with an Italian merchant’s family and investments made on the ’Change over many years. I must keep in mind that these funds must be made to last quite a long time.

The meaning of those five underlined words was not lost on me.

The agent happily arranged our passage. He did not question my need to add Merritt, Shade, and the casket of Private Makins to those arrangements. He took care of every detail, including the purchase of a team of horses and a carriage for my use in England.

Merritt helped me to deliver Private Makins’s remains to his widow, a beautiful young woman who seemed overwhelmed by my attention to her late husband’s burial.

“Your husband was a great help to me at Waterloo,” I told her. She accepted this without question. I gave her his last letter, as he had asked. I left a sum of money with her that would ensure she would not be forced within the next few years to seek a new home or spouse out of desperation, telling her that these were the earnings of her late husband, from a venture we had entered into together. This was not entirely untrue.

I saw that Merritt seemed quite taken with her, and she seemed to feel very much at ease in his presence. But she was still in mourning, and he quite rightly honored that. We took our leave after the funeral.

The thought that Merritt might return to marry her one day made me consider my own affairs. I was of good family, and upon my father’s death had inherited a comfortable property, a part of the estate not entailed to my brother. This, combined with my wealth, and the fact that so many men had been lost in the late war, would be enough to ensure that a great many families would be glad of any courtship I pursued with an unmarried daughter. But I hesitated to look for a wife.

I did not yet accept that all Lord Varre had told me was true, but niggling doubts would not be banished. What if I were to marry and not only outlive my wife-and children and grandchildren-but appear to be younger than they once they had passed the age of twenty-four? It seemed impossible, and yet envisioning such a situation was enough to cause me to remain reticent.

My brother’s happiness at my return from war was evident-he had thought me lost at Waterloo. His welcome was warm and deeply gratifying. His wife was expecting their third child, and his two boys, then aged seven and five, made quite a to-do about their uncle the soldier and his large dog.

Although my brother and I reminisced late into the night, I awoke just before dawn and, unable to fall asleep again, got up and lit the fire that had been laid in the fireplace in my room. I had already learned that I could forgo sleep without ill effect, although sleeping felt good, and I took pleasure in it when I could manage it. I was wide awake now, though, so I grasped the handle of the water pitcher next to the basin, preparing to wash my face. I felt a small, sharp pain-the handle of the pitcher was chipped, and I had cut my hand. I was fortunate that Merritt was not yet up and attending me, because no sooner had I pressed a clean cloth to the wound than it healed. If I had not seen the bloodstains on the cloth and the handle of the pitcher, I would not have been sure I had been cut. I quickly wiped off the handle and burned the cloth in the fire. Shade watched me with interest but did not move from the hearth rug.

I stood staring at my hand. What if all that Lord Varre had told me was true? What if I had been given more than the ability to speak to the dying?

Impossible! Every man died. Some part of my brain whispered that everything else Varre had said was true, so perhaps I was, after all, immortal. My next rash temptation was to take out my pistols and test this premise in the gravest way possible. I was not quite desperate enough (or foolish enough) to try it, especially not in my brother’s home, but I took my penknife and stood by the basin again. I deliberately cut myself. It stung. It bled. It healed almost instantly.

I cut it again. Deeply. It hurt more, bled more, but healed nearly as quickly as the previous two wounds.

I opened the window of my room and, making sure no one was watching, emptied the bloody water from the basin into the flower beds below.

I sat on the bed, shaking.

Another man might have rejoiced in the prospect of being unable to remain wounded. Perhaps it was the cumulative effect of weeks of unsettling experiences, but my own reaction was one of dread.

What had I become?

I moved to my knees and prayed, as hard as I had prayed when I lay dying at Waterloo. “Am I still human?” I whispered wretchedly. I tried to take the memento mori ring off my finger. It would not budge. I considered removing the finger.

I began to wonder if on that battlefield, when I lay reaching so desperately for life, I had instead taken hold of the unforgivable. I begged God for answers, for guidance.

I waited and waited, but heard no divine reply.

I knelt there for some time longer, feeling utterly forsaken. Shade approached me and laid his head on my hands. Eventually I moved to sit on the bed, and he placed his head on my knee. I stroked his soft fur and, as so often happened, found myself calmed by his companionship.

In the days since my rescue, had I done evil? I could not believe that comforting those men was wrong, or that their words or reactions to me signified a partnership with the devil. If I had known in advance that I would be able to help them in this way, would I have refused to do so by refusing the gift? I couldn’t bring myself to say that I would.

Something within me spurned the idea that I would be immortal here on earth. There would be a way out of this bargain. I would accept my lot and do my work, and hope for release. Despair seemed unlikely to lead me to anything good.

I was calmer, but not without concerns. What if I were to be in a carriage accident or injured under some other public circumstance, and this instantaneous healing were witnessed by others? What if someone were to see me recover almost spontaneously from even a minor wound, as I had just now?

Perhaps I could become the ideal soldier. But again my wounds might be seen to heal rapidly, or I might be the only one to survive a deadly engagement. If I were to walk into the War Department and so much as start to suggest that I was unable to die, I’d be sent to Bedlam to do my battles.

If Lord Varre had been telling the truth, and in appearance and strength I remained twenty-four and unharmed forever, what place could I occupy in the world?

I had many questions, and I believed only one person was likely to have answers for me: Lord Varre. I began to feel certain that I should seek him out, and learn as much as I could from him.

I rang for Merritt, dressed, and hurried to the library. There I took my brother’s copy of Debrett’s from the shelf and looked up Lord Varre. His estates were situated in the north of England, a journey of three days from my brother’s home.

So it was that I expressed regrets to my hosts, saying that urgent business called me to the north, but that I expected to return soon. I left with their protests in my ears, wondering if I was embarking on a fool’s errand.