The Folly by Irina Shapiro Page A

cigar for a moment, his eyes never leaving the portrait.  “You didn’t know, did you?  You thought he drank himself to death after you left, but I left nothing to chance ; in case you decided to leave me and return to that pathetic excuse of a man.  It’s not that he didn’t drink.  The man could drink anyone under the table, but he would, no doubt, have lived on.  I paid a couple of sailors to toss him off a bridge into the Thames.  With him out of the way, you had nothing left to draw you back to London.  You were all mine.”
    Henry uncrossed his legs and took a sip of brandy, putting the glass back on the polished end table.  “You were a good actress, Mariah.  I give you that.  You pretended you loved me so convincingly , that at times I actually forgot why you married me.  I did love you, you know.  I would have made you happy if you ever gave me the chance.  If Jeremy had been mine, how different our lives could have been.  Instead, I married a woman shunned by society, accepted her bastard as my own to avoid scandal , and ended up with no heir of my own to carry on the family name and the title.  Ironic, wouldn’t you say, my dear?
    Oh, if you could see me now, you would be so pleased.  I ’ m married to another harlot who can’t stand the sight of me , and flushes my seed from her womb as soon as I leave the room , and now she is spreading her legs for your son.  It’s priceless, really.”
    Henry rose from his seat, stubbing out his cigar in a nearby ashtray.  No doubt the servants would be wondering tomorrow who had been in this room.  He gave the portrait one last look.  “I ’ m not going to let this go unpunished, even if I have to break my promise to you.  Why should I keep my word when you broke every promise you ever made to me?  Can’t answer that, can you?”   Henry turned off the lamp and left the room, Mariah’s face swallowed by the darkness.
     

 
    Chapter 1 7
     
    Jeremy was up before dawn, eager to get going.  Silas Manson would be waiting for him by the gamekeeper’s cottage with the hunting rifles.  Jeremy hadn’t been hunting in ages , and he looked forward to a day spent outdoors in the company of the old man.  Silas Manson had been like a father to him when he was a boy , and he spent many a happy afternoon fishing or hunting with Silas and his son, Simon.  They would come back tired and hungry and Mr. Manson’s wife, Adele , would always have a hot meal waiting for them , and something tasty for pudding.  Jeremy often thought of those golden days when he was first away at school, lonely and plagued by nightmares .  He was older now, but not much had changed.  He was still lonely , and the nightmares were his constant companions . 
    Hardly a night went by that he didn’t wake up in cold sweat, dreaming of grotesquely mutilated bodies torn apart by cannon fire , and the screams of dying horses left on the battlefield, waiting to be shot and put out of their misery.  In his dreams , Jeremy always walked among the dead, looking for something or someone.  His eyes burned from the smoke , and he tripped over teenage boys, their eyes staring at a sky they could no longer see.  The stench of blood and gunpowder made his eyes water , as he tried in vain to find a way to leave the battlefield and return to his regiment , if it even still existed . 
    He wasn’t sure who he was searching for, but it was imperative that the person be found , and Jeremy wandered around until day turned into night and the crows came to pick at the fresh corpses, feasting on the eyes and innards of the dead.  There was no one particular battle that Jeremy dreamed of.  They were all rolled into one, a continuous Hell on Earth where the booming of the cannon never stopped , and fresh troops kept coming to be mowed down within minutes ; the ground littered with dead , clothe d in the red of the British and the blue of the French.
    Silas was already outside the cottage, guns