Young bloods

Arthur clenched his teeth tightly for an instant, before he dared to respond in a strained cordial tone.'As I said, if war comes, I will have prospects.'

'If war comes, you will be sent into action. A battlefield is at least as dangerous a place as a Dublin drinking house.' Tom smiled. 'In any case, if you go to war, there's a good chance you won't come back. Do you wish Kitty to wear black so soon after she wears white?'

Arthur's eyes fell. 'No.'

With a rhetorical flourish Tom raised a palm as if he was a lawyer, summing up a conclusive presentation of evidence. Then he was silent.

Arthur felt angry, heart-broken and physically sick, but had just enough control over his wits to keep his face expressionless. He looked up, his bright blue eyes boring into his host.

'Would you deny me her hand in marriage then, Pakenham?'

'I would.'

'Why?'

'Why?'Tom raised his eyebrows in surprise. 'For all the reasons I've already given, and more besides. Wesley, the simple and plain truth of the matter is that you are not good enough for my sister. Not good enough now. Not good enough ever. And when Kitty comes to her senses she'll see that.'

Arthur felt his veins fill with a cold fury as Tom spoke of his sister in such mercenary terms.

'Kitty loves me.'

'She's said so?'

'She has.' Arthur stared at him defiantly. 'We could be married without your consent.'

It was a desperate and ungentlemanly threat, but it was all that he could think of. Tom's lips twisted into a contemptuous sneer. He nodded, leaned forward over the desk, and lowered his voice to a menacing growl. 'You could. I'd cut her dead, of course, and you, I'd ruin.You have my word that I'd devote all my energies to that end. Don't even think of doing it, Wesley.'

Tom sat back and pointed to the door.'I want you to leave.You have my answer. There's no more to be said.'

Arthur's mind reeled, searching desperately for some argument he had not yet used, but Tom was right – there was nothing more to say. Nothing. It was over and he had lost Kitty. Lost everything that mattered to him. Rising from the chair, he bowed his head.

'Goodbye, Pakenham.'

'Goodbye, Wesley.'

He turned and strode out of the study, closing the door loudly behind him. He didn't return to the library but marched straight for the front door and down the steps, and towards the stables.The groom was already waiting with his horse, as if he had been expecting the captain to be leaving shortly. Behind him footsteps crunched on the gravel.

'Arthur! Arthur, wait!'

He paused, and turned round slowly. Kitty drew up short as she saw the terrible pain in his expression.

'Oh, no…'

'I'm sorry, Kitty.'

'No.Wait.You wait here. I'll speak to him.' She turned and ran back to the entrance, calling back one last time. 'Wait!'

But Arthur knew it was pointless. Tom Pakenham would not change his mind. He had opposed the marriage right from the start, as Arthur now realised with bitter awareness. He just wasn't good enough for Kitty.The words stung him like a blow. Because they were true. He snatched the reins from the groom and threw himself up into the saddle. He applied the spurs savagely and, with a spray of loose gravel, he turned his back on Pakenham Hall for ever and galloped away down the drive.

By the time he had returned to his lodgings in Dublin, his anger had died away, and there was only a dull aching despair in his heart. He climbed the stairs to his room and closed and locked the door behind him. Outside night had fallen and the orange flicker of a streetlamp lined his window frame. It was cold and Arthur lit a candle and quickly made up the fire. Soon a warm, wavering glow filled the room and he sat on a stool and stared into the heart of the burning coals.With Kitty gone from his life, what was left? What was he to do? Arthur glanced round at his room, and realised just how sick of it he had become. How sick of the boorish fools who filled the viceroy's court.

His eyes wandered to the violin propped up in the far corner, and with a faint smile, he rose from the stool and fetched the instrument. For a moment, he plucked the strings absent-mindedly. Then, raising the bow, he began to play. As the thin notes filled the air Arthur closed his eyes and let his mind roam back to childhood. Back to Dangan; the music room and his father proudly presenting him with this very violin; the delighted applause of his family as he entertained them all for the first time.

As he played, his mind wandered freely.

The revolutionary madness in France would now spill across its borders and threaten the rest of the world with its contagion. It must be stopped if order, if civilisation itself, were to endure. The French king was dead, murdered by his own people, and England would have no choice but to go to war. In that event would Kitty be safe here in Ireland with its restless native population of Catholic farmers? Wolfe Tone was already plotting a bloody insurrection from exile in France. France again. Always France. She must be crushed before she crushed other nations under her bloody heel.

Arthur lifted his violin and slowly lowered himself on to the stool. He stared into the red flames and saw that the world was changing. Unless men acted now, a new dark age of mob savagery would crush the whole of Europe in its embrace. With a start he realised that he would be amongst those men called upon in this hour of destiny, and he feared that he would be found wanting. Tom Pakenham had touched a raw nerve when he had said that Arthur was not good enough. He was right. Arthur was not good enough for Kitty, and he was not good enough for the challenges that lay ahead.

He nodded slowly. Then he must better himself, and prove worthy of his family's name. He had lost Kitty and must devote himself to serving the ends of his country and his people. Nothing else mattered now. All that occupied him before was diversion, a distraction, and all must be sacrificed to his new purpose in life.

Arthur's eyes fell to the violin he cradled in his lap.The warm polished wood was smooth and familiar to his touch. It had been his for nearly fifteen years, his companion and his source of comfort and pleasure away from all the other burdens of his life. In that thin shell of wood lived countless memories that now weighed down on him, until he suddenly knew what he must do, and do now. Standing up, he stepped towards the fire and holding the neck of the instrument, he placed it on to the burning coals. For a moment the violin rested in the wavering flames.Then with a yellow flare the varnish caught and longer flames eagerly played over its elegant curves. As the cherry-red veneer darkened to black and cracked, tears pricked out of Arthur's eyes and slowly rolled down his cheeks.

Chapter 73

France, 1793

The lead wagon jolted along the track in an unsteady motion that never quite managed to settle into any kind of rhythm. Napoleon had folded a heavy cloak over the cracked leather of the driver's bench, but the rutted surface beneath the iron-rimmed wheels still jarred his back and rattled his teeth as the unsprung ammunition wagon lurched along the road from Avignon to Nice. Beside him the wagon's driver held the traces in one heavily calloused hand and gripped a small loaf stuffed with garlic sausage in the other.

Gripping the handrail, Napoleon twisted round and stared back along the line of eight wagons that comprised the convoy. Each one was heavily laden with kegs of gunpowder and garlands of ca