Part III

In which some Parties strive to know their Duty, and their Hearts, and Others seek to claim Reason in an utter lack of Sense.

***

“My dear Calpurnia---“

No. Convention dictated that he mustn’t address her so. Stephen dipped the quill again, but hesitated before striking the name through. Hell, convention dictated that he not write to her at all, an unmarried woman who was not his relation, and not his affianced. Not in the eyes of the great world, that was, not yet, but in their hearts…

But this concerned her brother’s life, damn it, and damn the rest of it too. He crumpled the first sheet in his hands and tossed it straight onto the fire that crackled cheerily in The Maidenhead’s mostly empty common room, and drawing another from the little stack on the table before him, began again:

“My Own Dear Girl,

He is alive. That word, before all else, I know you must be awaiting, and I give it to you now.  

He was wounded, yes, but in the shoulder only. I have no doubt that Benedick has left town forthwith, and gone into the country. God knows he barely cared, once he was satisfied, to stay to see whether or not his victim still breathed. But if any rumor should come to your ear from his quarter, or anyone else’s, do not believe it, for here is my word, my dear Calpurnia, and I tell you that your brother lives, and that I know he will be well.

We are keeping here at The Maidenhead, as you see by the direction, but do not come, I beg you. In only a few days, I am certain, Endymion will be strong enough to travel, and then I shall take him home to Great Nether, and I would, most certainly, have you leave town and find us there, for we shall have need of you, of the comfort and care that only you can give.

My dear, I do not wish to alarm you, but neither do I wish for you to observe your brother in his present state wholly unprepared, and so now I must tell you, as gently as I may, that although it is naught but a shoulder wound that compromises the health of Endymion’s body, there is, I fear, yet another consequence which has manifested itself as a result of his injury. Forgive me, for I cannot tell if he suffered a blow to the head as he fell, or if this condition has resulted from what we in the medical profession would term “the shock” that would most naturally have accompanied the painful and disruptive invasion of his body by a leaden ball. In short, my dear, Endymion is not quite himself. Quite plainly, I am speaking of his mind. In my experience, I must confess I have never seen the like, but certainly I have read of such cases, and when I am at home, and can be at my books, I am determined to discover all that I may. It seems to me that Dr. Beddoes has written extensively on such cases, and this condition, in particular, which I believe is properly termed “amnesia” and further, that he believes it to be as much a corporeal distemper as fever or infection, and therefore as responsive to physick and the healing benefits of time and good care as any such ailments.

I should tell you, too, that this amnesia seems to have presented itself in what, to my understanding, is a rather unique way, for, rather than Endymion simply having lost his memory, and his knowledge of his own identity and those of his friends, in fact he seems to have substituted them with the most extraordinary delusions---he seems to believe himself a common seaman, of all things! Or so he did. Between Nettles and myself, we have already begun to disabuse him of these absurd notions, and to re-acquaint him with the true facts of his own life, and these he does seem to accept and to take to heart quite meekly. But elements of the delusion still persist as I write, and I believe you may find it quite startling, at first, to hear him speak! The very cant of Seven Dials! Well you know his gift for mimicry, and the way he will so often entertain us all with his characters and his voices. I can only conjecture that in the confusion of his illness, he…“

“Preposterous!” Peregrine Purebread crossed the Morning Room on lean, silk-clad legs, from the chimneypiece---where he’d been idly polishing his quizzing glass as he listened to her relate the contents of Stephen’s letter---to the window, where Calpurnia turned slightly away at his approach, as if to shield the pages from him.

“’Amnesia’? I have never heard of such nonsense!” he scoffed. “He means to say that Lord Oliphant is mad, does he not?”

Calpurnia observed that his dark red hair seemed to glow a most unpleasant shade of orange in the bright southerly light that streamed in through the windows, and that here and there a short, tightly curling strand seemed to have escaped the discipline of the thick, cinnamon oil pomade his valet must have applied to it that morning, and sprung up in lewd defiance, reminding her of nothing so much as her own rather coarse, kinky nether hairs. She colored at the very idea of having such a thought in relation to Peregrine, even if it was only to make an unfavorable comparison.

In any event, he was too near, and as discreetly as she could manage it, she folded the pages closed, and brought them close to her breast. “He does not say that Endymion is mad,” she said firmly. “Only that he is…ill. But Steph---but Dr. Studley seems certain that he will recover himself completely, and I, for one, have the utmost faith in his medical judgment.”

“Mm,” Peregrine mumbled, tight-lipped. “What else does he say? That’s rather a long letter you have there, and I wonder if you have told us all. Come now, we are family here, my dear.”

Calpurnia smiled, a bit stiffly. “Well, it is a rather long letter, and so I have put much of it in my own words, of course, but I assure you, sir, I have related all of the pertinent facts. In addition to these, he only adds that we must all do what we can to help Endymion in his recovery when he is returned to Great Nether, and that a quiet life in the country and tender care of those who love him are what he will need most.”

“Of course! And we must all go now!” Pandora Purebread rose from the settee. A heavenly creature in her cloud-blue walking costume, she came to put her arms around Calpurnia. “Peregrine, you must take me home immediately, so that I might see to the house and have us packed for the country! Dear Calpurnia! You mustn’t be afraid! I know that Dr. Studley is correct, and all will be well! I know it!” Her lovely, angelic face and soft blue eyes were the picture of tender care as she stroked Calpurnia’s arm, soothing her.

Not for the first time, Calpurnia could not help but think how different a brother and sister could be. Here was Pansy, as beautiful as a painting, all softness and golden hair, so perfectly sweet and good. And there was Peregrine, slender and sharp---not truly unhandsome, if she were to judge without partiality---but she never could abide that dreadful red hair, and his rather long, inquisitive nose had always made her think of one of these hideous ferrets that Endymion used to keep. But why should she wonder at the contrast, really? She had only to look at herself and Endymion: light and dark, frivolous and serious, reckless and responsible. Fearless and…

Stinging tears sprang suddenly to her eyes, in spite of her determined resolve.

“Oh, no!” cried Pansy, embracing her fully, holding her close against her generous bosom. “Oh, my dear, you mustn’t! Oh, come now, it isn’t like you to fret, is it? We are here to help you as best we may, aren’t we, Peregrine?”

“Of course,” her brother replied, bowing slightly and smiling in a way that Calpurnia believed she was meant to read as charming. “Miss Oliphant knows that I am her servant, as ever.”

Might she give him the sack and send him off without a character, then? Oh, she was ungrateful and cross! What would Grandpapa have said? It wasn’t as if she as the only one who must be suffering this anxiety. Although it did seem to Calpurnia that Pansy was a good deal more concerned with how she, Calpurnia, was adjusting to the news, than for herself or her injured fiance. Perhaps that was understandable, in light of the circumstances that had led to Endymion’s wounding---dueling, risking his life for the sake of another man’s wife, with seemingly little regard for the woman to whom he owed the most consideration, and whose very future and reputation he would so cavalierly put in jeopardy, to say nothing of whatever tender feelings she might hold for the man she was to marry. And Pansy was, above all, a tender sort of girl.

Calpurnia gave her head a shake and sniffed, composing herself quickly. Pansy was right, of course. It simply wasn’t like her to fret or fall to bits, especially when there was so much to be done!

“You are so good to me, dear Pansy,” she said, returning the girl’s embrace. “Both of you are…such cherished friends,” she added, giving Peregrine a quick smile.

“Well, we have always been as sisters, haven’t we?” Pansy said. “And before long, we shall be, really and truly, won’t we?”

Peregrine snorted. “Naturally, the wedding will have to be postponed, at the very least!” he said.

“Whatever can you mean, Perry?” said Pansy, turning on her brother and seeming to puff up with pretty indignation, like a little hen with her cloud-blue feathers ruffled. “We shall assume nothing of the sort at the moment, shall we, Calpurnia? And I don’t know what you mean by, ‘at the very least’! For shame! As if I would ever think of such a thing as crying off our engagement at a time like this, when Calpurnia---and Endymion---need me!”

Peregrine, in turn, drew himself up as stiff as a fighting cock, his bristling red comb and long, sharp beak completing the picture to perfection. He snapped, “It is well enough that I am expected to stand aside and watch my only sister be married to a fool and a libertine, but I will be damned if I shall let you give yourself up to a Bedlamite, Pandora, Papa’s will be damned!”

Pandora gasped. “Perry! How can you---?”

“Please!” Calpurnia interrupted. “Please, Lord Purebread. Your sister is right, surely? We need make no assumptions, just yet, as to Lord Oliphant’s future…health. And as to your other remarks regarding my brother, I am prepared, in this instance, to grant you pardon. You spoke, I know, only out of a brother’s concern.”

Peregrine bowed low, his eyes on hers, grey, with shards of white ice that seemed to match the chill in her heart when she looked at him. No, not unhandsome; no one would really say so, but oh, how could she ever---? But inwardly she must concede that they were in agreement on at least one thing. In fact, Endymion and Pansy were a terrible match, and Calpurnia had always known it. There had been times when she had almost been able to make herself believe that Pansy might, in the end, have a gentling effect on Endymion, that her beauty and sweet simplicity might work a settling charm upon his restless nature. But in her heart, she knew that it would never have been enough for him, and that Pansy would surely be the one to suffer. How could she, Calpurnia, wish such a thing on Pansy, who truly had been, just as she had said, so very much like a dear little sister to her?

“It is a woman’s duty,” her grandpapa would say. Oh, Grandpapa! She had loved him so! And she knew, even, that he was not always right, but she had loved him, and she had promised him, and if it came to it, could she be so disloyal to his precious memory?

When the Purebreads had gone at last, Calpurnia rang the bell, and when Keeble appeared, she instructed him to make arrangements to remove to Great Nether. Then she stood by the window for a few moments more, bathed in the warm, bright sun---so rare for London at this time of year!---and unfolded her letter. Once more, she smiled, reading his bold salutation, and then, the final lines, intended only for her:

“I have your trust, do I not, Calpurnia? You know, do you not, that all I do is for the sake of but one object, that I would forfeit my very life for your protection, and for your most perfect happiness?

“My trespasses are already far too many to ever be forgiven, and if I am a criminal condemned, then let me revel in my crime: I kiss your hands, your eyes, your mouth. I have promised you, my dear, my darling girl! When, oh, when, shall you promise me? “


***

“Is the food to your liking, sir?” The tall feller asked him. He was bringing in more water. What else was left to wash, Alfie wondered? He’d been soaped and scrubbed from head to toe a couple of times already, and he didn’t see as that could be good for a body, no matter what that feller---Nettles was his name---said. He was about rubbed raw, and still the man weren’t satisfied.

“Mmm. Good!” Alfie mumbled through a large mouthful in answer to the question.  Good? It was the best damned grub he’d ever had! Even the leftovers he was used to get from the kitchens at Lombard Street when he was a mite weren’t near as good as this, at least not that he remembered. Today he had a nice beef and kidney pie with lots of onions and a thick and tender gold-y brown crust that he would swear just melted away right in his mouth whenever he took a bite. He didn’t mind that there wasn’t so much salt to the beef, even, because there were so many other good tastes in there besides. Herbs and pepper and things, he reckoned. He had a loaf of fresh white bread and a nice hunk of yellow cheese, and some good dark brown ale to wash it all down. There was even some pretty-looking red apples in a bowl on the table next to the bed, and he reckoned he might have one of those later, while he was looking out the window at the birds and the trees. Even with his shoulder paining him the way it did, and even with all the soaping and shaving and scrubbing, it was a fact that he was pretty sure this was the most comfortable he’d ever been in his life. And Nettles said that this wasn’t nothing compared to what it was like at this place they were going, Great Nether, what had belonged to this feller, Lord Oliphant, who they said looked had just like him, and who they said he was meant to pretend to be now.

Probably they were crazy, both of them, Nettles and the Doctor feller, but Alfie didn’t mind going along with them for now. Sometimes that was what you had to do with crazy people. Like poor old Finch, when he’d get to seeing God in the rigging; it was always best to go along with him, and say you saw Him too, or Finch would go even crazier, and sometimes he’d even start to cry, and such. If he thought you saw God, too, though, he was happy.

He was warm and dry and comfortable, he had plenty to eat, and he wasn’t fit for work, anyhow. On top of it, he’d had enough trouble with soldiers and the like along the road, even with his liberty ticket on him, and now something had happened to that. There must be some kind of a hot press on, and he wasn’t too keen to get nabbed for some ship that wasn’t the Indy, what might have a captain that wasn’t a good one like Pellew. The Indy might even have sailed by now, and he reckoned he might as well lay low here as anywhere. He’d miss his mates, and he didn’t much like the idea of being thought a deserter, either, but he’d have to think about all of that later.

He was curious, too, and that was a fact. He hadn’t been able to believe that any one feller could really look so much like any other so that folk that knew the other feller could really be fooled, but then Doctor Studley had showed him the picture. It was just a tiny picture---a pair of them, in fact---in a little gold case that opened up like a book.

“Lord Oliphant had these made only recently,” the Doctor said. “It was to be wedding gift to his betrothed, I believe. This is Miss Purebread, his lordship’s affianced. And this, of course, is his lordship. Can you tell me it is not exactly like looking in a mirror, Mr. Oldroyd?”

For a minute, Alfie couldn’t help thinking about the last time he’d seen himself in a mirror, and he had to admit, it gave him a little pang to think again how Betty Brewster had messed him about. He couldn’t help thinking, either, that this shore leave business could be rougher on a body than serving on a man ‘o war. What with the beating he’d taken from Finchley Figgers, and then getting run down by a carriage and a pair of horses, he reckoned he hadn’t known how safe he was at sea. At least with the Frogs, you knew they was going to be shooting at you. A man could at least be prepared!

And then it took him another minute to answer the Doctor’s question, because all of a sudden he had the funniest feeling, like he’d been run down all over again. Course, he wasn’t thinking it as such, at the time, but when he had time to ponder on it later, he decided that, if ever he’d tried to figure out what the angels in heaven might look like, his imagination probably couldn’t come a lot closer than the picture that was looking back at him from that little gold case. If angels had tits, that was.

“Well?” Doctor Studley asked. He was a youngish feller that reminded Alfie a lot of Mr. Hornblower. Real serious and smart, and he was tall, too, with dark hair and those same kind of brown eyes that was kind of deep and maybe a little bit sad. Like Mr. Hornblower, too, you could just tell he was the sort of man you could trust to be fair and look after you and make sure you didn’t get yourself into too much trouble.

“Yeah,” Alfie said finally. “I reckon he does look like me at that. What’s a fee-once?”

“Pardon? Oh. Affianced, Mr. Oldroyd. Miss Purebread is---or was---Lord Oliphant’s intended. She was to be his wife,” Studley said.

At first Alfie didn’t think too much about what the doctor had just said. He was just staring at the picture. “Ain’t she pretty, though? But them…” he looked up at the doctor. “I reckon the artist feller, he made ‘em look so big and nice just for the picture, eh? They ain’t real?”

Studley laughed and his dark eyes held a knowing glint that Alfie sure enough rrecognized. They were talking, after all, man to man. “Oh, I can assure you they are! Indeed, Miss Purebread is an acknowledged beauty, and her figure---although some will call it far too lavish for fashion---is greatly admired, at least among most gentlemen of my acquaintance!”

“Cor,” Alfie sighed, staring. And then it hit him. “Hang on---I don’t got to get married, do I?”

It seemed to Alfie that he never did get a straight answer to that question. Studley had said something about crossing some bridge, and he’d started in messing about with Alfie’s sling and asking him all kinds of questions about whether this hurt, or that was feeling any better yet, and how was he liking the food and was the bed comfortable enough, and before Alfie knew it, the pictures had been put away, and Nettles was back in there with some more water, and that had just been that. But in the meantime, Alfie had thought on it and decided he didn’t reckon anybody could make him get married, and all he’d have to do, if worse come to worst, was just to jump for it, and find him a new ship at the nearest port. If it came to that, it sure would make a good story to tell in the mess, if nothing else.

He reckoned they was both crazy, and he wasn’t at all sure about any of it, but then, he’d never been any place like this Great Nether, and he thought it sounded like a place he should see. For that matter, he’d never laid eyes on a real angel, neither. What man wouldn’t be curious?

It wasn’t easy to eat in bed, and he was trying to be careful not to get any of the beef gravy on his nice white shirt. Really, it had belonged to that Lord Oliphant feller, and it was the only one he’d got at the moment. Not that it mattered if he did dirty himself, because that feller Nettles would have it off him and clean again in no time. The man was a fool for cleaning things, that was for sure. He reckoned some people were just like that. Captain Pellew was a right one for a nice, white deck, for instance, and any time there wasn’t nothing else to do, and even sometimes when there was, he’d have ‘em all down on their knees, sanding and holystoning the boards until they shone like a piece of silver.

It wasn’t easy trying to use a fork, either, especially with these mitts the feller had put on him, and truth be told, whatever that nasty paste was he’d smeared all over Alfie’s hands before he’d shoved them in there was beginning to burn just a little bit. Alfie thought maybe he’d better mention it.

“Ah, that’s because it’s working!” Nettles said with a smile. “But perhaps it has been on long enough. Let’s have a look, shall we?”

Alfie held up his good hand, and after removing Alfie’s dinner tray and placing it on the table with the apples, Nettles slowly peeled the glove off it, taking a lot of the greasy, grayish paste along with it. Alfie wrinkled his nose at the peculiar smell.

“Oh, yes. Look at that!” Nettles said proudly, taking Alfie’s hand in his own and turning it, palm up, to inspect it. “Now that is the hand of a gentleman, sir.”

Alfie couldn’t believe it. Anybody knew that a couple years of hauling rope and climbing ratlines and a man would go to his grave with the tar stains as much a part of his skin as his tattoos, and no amount of scrubbing was going to make any kind of difference. But now Alfie looked down at his own hand, turning it over and back, and over and back again, and damned if it weren’t as pink and soft as a little baby’s. Not any woman he’d ever had, even, had hands as clean as this.

He whistled in amazement. “Cor! What’d you do to me?”

Nettles beamed. “Nettle’s Secret Bleaching Preparation. I used it to get the…bloodstains out of your shirt as well. Can’t give away the entire secret, of course. Lime and a bit of potash, a dash of this and a dribble of that. I daresay it worked even better than I expected! Fancy that!  I am pleased!”

After he’d pulled the other mitt off the hand that belonged to the arm in the sling, and saw it just as pink and soft and clean as the first, Nettles went and poured some of the hot water he’d brought into the basin, soaked a piece of linen in it, and began to wash the remains of the greasy stuff from Alfie’s hands for him. “But we don’t say, ‘cor’ anymore, do we sir?” the man said, looking Alfie in the eye.

“Oh, right. Forgot, “ Alfie said agreeably. “What d’we say, then?”

“Oh, any number of things, “ Nettles said thoughtfully. “It rather depends on the company. It is perhaps always safest to say something like, ‘my goodness!’ or ‘good heavens!’

“Good ‘eavens!” Alfie tried it out. “Yeah, that one’s all right!”

Nettles shook his head. “No, ‘heavens’. Ha-heavens. You must sound the haitch, sir. You remember. Hah! As if you have something at the back of your throat, or you are making to spit. Try it again.”

“Good ha-heavens!”

“Yes, sir! That’s rather more like it. Very good indeed!”

“Ha-Horatio Ha-Hornblower!”

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“Oh, nuffink. I was just trying out my ha-haitches.”

“Very good, sir.” Nettles finished washing Alfie’s hands, then straightened up and took the water away.

“I told you there’s already some things I can say proper, didn’t I, Mr. Nettles? Leastwise my mates always said I sounded just like the real thing,” Alfie said with a grin, remembering some good times on the old Indy when he’d been able to make Stylesy just about jump out of his skin, thinking the captain was standing right behind him when he were up to something he shouldn’t be!

“Listen to this,” he said, waiting until he had the man’s full attention, and taking a moment to arrange himself just right, sitting up real straight, like he’d got a proper big stick up his arse. He cleared his throat a little and made sure he talked real low and slow:

“I usually find that the more able the officer, the better turned out the men,” he said. Then, doing his best not to giggle, he lowered his chin just a little bit, and gave Nettles That Look, the look like he weren’t no more than a little dried up speck of turd stuck to the bottom of his, Alfie’s, nice, shiny new boots, and said, “At least in the ahh-my.”

Nettles looked at the young man, feeling an odd mixture of sadness and wonder. What an utterly curious person! He was indeed a gifted mimic—although so was a trained crow---but that was so very curious as well, for Lord Oliphant too, of course…

How, he asked himself again, had this happened? And what was he to make of it all? Was it indeed, as Doctor Studley had declared, the very work of Providence? Or was it rather, he wondered with a bit of a chill, the inevitable hand of Fate?

Was it even for him to consider these things, and were the consequences yet to come any kind of thing that he should take upon himself either to nurture or to prevent? He had served Lord Oliphant, and his father, and his father before him. He had kept his counsel always, and he knew that he would keep it still, for he was a gentleman’s gentleman, first, last, and above all.

“So what d’you think?” young Oldroyd asked, grinning expectantly. The afternoon sun crept in through the small, muntined window and lit his shining yellow curls, glinting off the gold ring he still wore in his ear. The diamond, Nettles thought. We overlooked that, didn’t we? Or did we? It was the only thing of his to go with him to his grave. Well, Lord Oliphant did have another. Several, in fact.

“Oh, excellent, Mr. Oldroyd!” he replied. “Most excellent indeed. And now that you’ve had your dinner, would you like to rest for a bit? I am just going to take these and put them outside for the girl, and then I shall go and see if there is anything Doctor Studley requires,” he said, picking up the dinner tray, and moving towards the door.

Alfie reckoned he was about ready to take a rest from resting, but he’d already figured out it didn’t do a bit of good to start an argument with Nettles or the Doctor feller. He gave a sigh and settled back against the big feather pillows, and reckoned he’d just watch his birds some more, until he felt like sleeping.

He was all right, was Old Nettles, though.

“Oi! Nettles!,” he called out as the man was turning the doorknob, about to step out into the hall. He turned round again, and Alfie just could tell by that patient look on his face he was about to tell him he needed to sound his ‘tee’s, or something.

He gave the old feller a wink and made like he’d got that stick up his arse again.

“By the by, Net-tles,” he said carefully, making sure to give him the turd look, too. “I think it might be better if you were to address me as ‘my lord’.”

The old man just about grinned, which gave Alfie almost as good a feeling as when Mr. Hornblower would call him a “good man”.

“Of course, my lord,” Nettles replied with a nod of his head. “It might at that.”


***


“Dear God. What crimes have I committed thus far, Nettles?” Stephen was stretched out on his bed, fully dressed, but for his boots, and he covered his squinting eyes with one hand, pinching the bridge of his nose, as if his head was paining him.

“Kidnapping and fraud, sir,” Nettles replied, bending to pick up the boots. “Oh, and theft, I suppose, if the cost of the inn is coming out of his lordship’s purse.”

“You’re guilty too, of course,” the doctor said. “If only by association.”

“Yes, sir. Shall I have these cleaned for you?” He held up the boots.

Stephen sat up suddenly, onto the edge of the bed. “You are---you have been---rather acquiescent, I must say! Have you nothing more to say on the matter? I think that is rather unlike you, Nettles, if I might presume to know your character.”

The old fellow merely nodded, and Stephen thought he detected the hint of a shrug about those straight, elegant shoulders. “Perhaps, sir, it is merely because, like you, I cannot think why it might be that circumstances should have presented themselves as they have, were it not for a very particular---and as you have termed it---a Provident cause. I simply do not know. But…”

“But what, man?” Stephen demanded sharply, and it occurred to Nettles that his eyes were slightly red and swollen, as if he’d been weeping. Well, very likely he had. He had just buried his dearest friend.

“Well, sir, I was only going to say that nothing has been done thus far that cannot be undone.”

Stephen shook his head. “I have written to Calpurnia.”

“Even so, sir.”

“Even so?” Stephen got to his feet and began to pace the bare floorboards in his stockinged feet, one hand on his hip, the other raking back his thick, dark forelock. “Even so? I have told her that her brother lives, that he was barely wounded! Am I to tell her now that it was all a lie, that I have seen Endymion laid, a stranger in a stranger’s grave, and that I have done these things, that I have concocted this…this ridiculous story---for no other reason than that I feared to lose her?” He gave a bitter laugh. “I shall lose her, shan’t I Nettles? One way or another, now, I shall! Oh, God! This is madness! What was I thinking?”

Neither man said anything for a long moment, although it seemed to Stephen that Nettles did have something in mind to say.

“What, Nettles?” he asked, finally.

“It’s nothing, sir.”

“It’s not nothing. Say your piece, man!”

Nettles hesitated a moment more, and then said. “I’m sorry, sir. It is only that I was suddenly reminded of something. I was thinking of Violet. Do you remember?”

Stephen looked confused. “Violet? The spaniel bitch? Endymion’s pet?”

“Yes, sir. One of his old lordship’s hunters kicked her in the stall and broke her back.”

Dear God. And Endymion wouldn’t let them shoot her, wouldn’t let them tell his grandfather. Stephen felt ill just thinking about it again, the poor creature. How she had suffered. They had constructed a brace to keep her perfectly still, fed her by hand for months. They had only been boys, but even then, he should have known better. Cruelty, was absolutely what it was, but Endymion had been wild with grief, and he, Stephen had not then, any more than he did now, been able to accept that there were some things that even he could not change.

“Anyone else would have shot that dog, sir,” Nettles went on. “And of course, it would have been the right thing to do.”

Yes. Stephen thought. But Violet had lived, after all, to walk and run, and to whelp litter upon litter of the finest bird dogs in all the Home Counties. Her descendents hunted the preserves of Dukes and Kings.

Stephen frowned. “Are you saying that the end can justify the means, Nettles? Christ, how trite.”

Nettle shook his head. “Oh, not at all, sir. At least, on the face of it, I was only thinking that I have seen what you can do when you put your mind to it. But now I imagine I am saying too that perhaps there is never only one right thing. That perhaps we cannot know, until we have seen a thing through, whether or not what is right is also what is best.”

Stephen had to laugh in spite of himself. “Not even Endymion himself could do a better job of rationalizing such an utterly appalling lack of sense. He would be amused, I think. So…in for a penny, in for a pound, eh, Nettles?”

“You might say that, sir,” Nettles replied. “I’ll just have these boots cleaned for you then, shall I?

To be continued

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