Heights
By mikemazza68
- 502 reads
He sat in the high-ceilinged drawing room of Leland Hall, eyes
staring hypnotically at the bright flames that jigged within the
cavernous fireplace, casting eerie shadows upon his brooding features.
He steepled his fingers before his tanned face and he sniffed...
* * *
The dishevelled child sniffed and ran a hand beneath his nostrils
before wiping them on the ragged legs of his breeches. He scratched at
the thatch of dusty, black hair and gazed with blank eyes from the
stern of the pitching merchantman as his sunbaked home faded into the
mists of the Ionian Sea.
He blinked and looked up at the dark woman who clutched his hand,
standing defiantly as her brown eyes dammed up the onrush of
tears...
* * *
A tear welled up and trickled down his bronzed cheek. Gold-ringed
fingers plucked a silk from the pocket of the bottle-green waistcoat
and wiped it aside. He neatly returned the handkerchief and resumed his
inspection of the fire, flickering ineffectually beneath the huge oil
painting of some bloody battle.
The oak-panelled door in the corner of the room swung open and he stood
up, pulling and adjusting the black frock coat around him, glancing
down at the toes of his gleaming boots.
The old man waddled in, the heels of his pinched, buckled shoes
clicking noisily on the polished floor. "Mister Heath, I apologise for
my tardiness, sir." He held out a pudgy hand and Heath's dark, scarred
fingers swamped it. "Did you have an agreeable journey ?"
* * *
The boy's journey to manhood began and ended simultaneously as he
knelt, stone-faced, by the diseased body of his mother.
The woman lay face-down, enwrapped in the shadows of a cobbled alleyway
behind the noisy textiles warehouses of Liverpool's Albert Docks, the
dark-red stain pooling and spreading in the grime and the
puddles.
"I barely touched her, sir." The bearded figure in the greatcoat
protested to the bored policeman. "I thought she was some robber and I
just... I just lashed out !" He stared down at the bloodstained cane he
held in his shaky, gloved fingers and he let it clatter to the
cobblestones. "It was an accident, sir. I barely touched her !"
They cast a glance at the child, crouched by his mother. The young boy
glared angrily back and muttered something at them. "He's been spouting
that strange gibberish since I found them. It's no tongue that I know
of."
The policeman continued to take his notes. "Aren't you going to do
something?"
"What would you have me do, sir ?" The official pocketed his notepad.
"They are not British subjects. Probably stowaways." He tidied his
uniform. "No crime has been committed here. It was purely an
accident."
"But, the child..."
"What about him ?" They looked once more at the boy who spat and cursed
unintelligibly, dark eyes burning through the grime. The policeman
sniffed. "He'll survive. The streets are filled with children like
him." He began to turn away.
"Couldn't you at least find him a place to stay ?"
"The orphanages will be full. And they will frown upon such as he." He
turned back. "Leave him, sir. He is not your concern..."
* * *
"What is your concern, Mister Heath, sir ? You have travelled far to
see me ?" Heath stared unblinkingly at the old man, hands folded behind
his back.
The old man's eyes narrowed as he studied the darkly-handsome man more
closely. "Are you, by any chance, related to that fellow, Heath, who
tended the stables at the old Eaton farm ?" He let his eyes mist as he
searched his memory. "Oh, it must be some five years ago now."
Heath merely smiled back at him...
* * *
The bearded man smiled at his children who glared sullenly at the
blank-faced boy gripping his hand, hooded eyes staring back from under
the dishevelled fringe. "Caroline, Howard, this is your new
brother."
He knelt next to the frowning child and smiled. "Heath, welcome to your
new home..."
* * *
"My home has been Leland Hall all my life." The old man sighed as he
sipped his brandy. "Where do you call home, sir ?"
Heath stared into the centre of the dark liquid as he slowly swirled
and swirled the glass in his large hand. "You mentioned the Eaton place
earlier. That is mine now." He raised his eyes and glared at the figure
seated in the high-backed chair opposite. "That was where I lived five
years ago..."
The old man pouted and frowned. "I don't understand, sir. Are you or
are you not the same fellow who lived at the farm back then ? From what
I heard, he was an ill-tempered, illiterate ne'er-do-well," he stared
at Heath's opulent attire, "whereas you..." He took another gulp of his
brandy. "I also heard that the daughter, a Miss Caroline Eaton, she was
deeply involved with him..."
* * *
Caroline and Heath raced across the brown and green moorland as they
had done so many times across the years, their fingertips barely
touching, lips stretched in mad grins.
Their eyes were wide as they stared at eachother beneath the darkening,
rain-laden skies, dark, unkempt hair whipping wildly around their faces
in the icy winds.
They stopped abruptly and each gripped the other's hands. Heath
laughed, feeling the chill cut through the tears and patches in his mud
and muck-stained clothes. "I love you, Caroline Eaton." He had to yell
over the shrieking gale. "I always will." He pulled her closer. "I'll
never leave you. Remember that..."
* * *
"I seem to remember," the old man stood before the fire, "that the
Mister Heath who lived at the farm," he took another sip of his drink,
"he disappeared for some reason. That was about five years ago too." He
stared back at Heath.
"Aye." The dark man's voice was soft. "That is true."
"Was that you, sir ?"
Heath downed the remainder of his brandy with a single gulp and kept
silent.
"You are a man of some means, sir." The old man sat slowly back in the
huge chair. "You disappeared for five years." He leaned forward. "What
happened ? Were you soldiering perhaps ?"
* * *
Heath stood knee-deep in dead soldiers a mile behind enemy lines, acres
of grey, blood-soaked mud all around him. In the distance, beyond
clouds of smoke the colour of wet slate, the French cannons boomed,
masking the screams of the wounded.
He stared wild-eyed at the bulging, mud-caked bags at his feet, bags
that oozed gold onto the blind faces of the blue-clad infantrymen, gold
of which his officers knew nothing.
The bloodied sabre shook in his fist and he let it drop soundlessly.
His knees began to buckle, but he willed himself to remain upright.
Years of sprinting across the wild and windy moors with Caroline had
given him that strength.
Heath thought of Caroline and he scowled.
The faint noise behind him, even over the thunder of the enemy
artillery, made him turn, the heavy musket rising swiftly to the
horizontal. The hazy outline raced towards him through the drifting
smoke, shrieking madly.
Heath fired without hesitation, the butt of his weapon slamming back
into his hip, the flame leaping a full yard clear of the dark
muzzle.
The figure in the haze jerked backwards and almost hovered horizontally
in the air before crashing to the cold mud. Heath pulled his aching
legs free of the corpses and retrieved his sword, dragging it slowly
across the battlefield.
He strode into the smoke and, with a grunt, he hoisted his blade as he
neared the moaning soldier. He glared crazily at the man at his feet, a
man who wore the same black-stained scarlet and gold tunic as he, but
this with the braiding of a lieutenant, a man who clutched at the
smouldering hole in his smashed shoulder. He stared up at Heath with
tear-washed eyes.
"For pity's sake, man, help me !"
Heath lowered the sword. "Where's your regiment, sir ?"
"Back..." the man grimaced, "back there somewhere, I don't know... Help
me, please !"
"So," Heath's low voice rolled like angry thunder, "why are you here
?"
"My father is a wealthy man," the other winced at the pain as he got to
his feet. "Help me get out of this place and you will be well-rewarded,
I swear."
Heath raised an ironic brow. "Tell me more, sir."
The soldier reached into his muddied jacket with his good hand.
"Consider this as a down-payment of my appreciation." He held out the
gold cross in his tremulous hand...
* * *
Heath held out the gold cross and watched the old man's eyes widen.
"You knew of my son ?" He took the trinket from the dark figure, his
voice weak. The old man sniffed as tears tumbled down his red face and
he slumped heavily down. "I have waited long for news of him." His
voice was now a whisper, and he turned the cross over and over, gazing
at it. "Tell me, did you serve together ? Where is he now ?"
Heath took a deep breath, his reply cold. "I did not know him, sir. I
only met him at the time of his death."
The old man's tears continued to spill and he squeezed the cross, his
knuckles whitening. "I feared he had perished out there and now I can
finally bury his memory." He looked up once more. "Did he die a heroic
death, sir ?"
Heath thought for a moment. "Few deaths in war are heroic. As for your
son, he died screaming and fleeing from his regiment. He died the death
of a coward begging me for his life in the mud." The old man's face
shook with grief. "I ended his shame&;#8230; and yours."
The man wept, the cross clattering to the floor. "Why ?"
"I didn't need your wealth, and I despise cowardice." Heath turned his
back. "I thought you should know just how thin your bloodline has
become." He pulled his coat tight around his broad shoulders. "And now,
sir, I have business elsewhere."
The old man's head remained lowered as Heath strode from the drawing
room and out of Leland Hall, trying to cleanse the foul, bitter taste
from his mouth.
He gazed out over the darkening land towards his next, his ultimate,
destination. Caroline Eaton was out there, living a life that he could
never have offered her five years ago, living a life with someone as
weak-willed as the deserter he had killed.
Heath was somewhat relieved that the old man had not enquired as to
precisely where he was or what he was doing when he had skewered his
son out there in that foreign mire. If he had, then he might have
needed to silence him; he felt the small, sharp knife poised in his
left boot. He smiled to himself; killing the old man would have
mattered little to him, not these days.
And now he had returned to his country, now he had discovered where his
beloved Caroline was, he would lie, cheat, scheme and, yes, even kill,
so that she would be his, as she was always destined to be.
Heath's smile broadened. He was so very glad to be home...
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