BOOK ONE:
THE PAST BASED ON RICHARD CARLYLE'S DIARY
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CHAPTER 1
8, October 1799, Cornwall, England.
DUSK DEEPENED THE sky, and the last traces of purple, crimson and orange faded, leaving a chill in the air that went right to the bones. The thundering of horses' hooves along with Christian Cardon's deranged laughter receded as he rode away. With a sinking feeling of foreboding, Richard Carlyle rushed up the hill to the two unhorsed figures, now lying on the dew dampened grass. They were joined together by the spear that had pierced them through like meat on a spit.
Richard stooped beside his best friend and the woman they had both loved. The woman was already dead but the man wasn't. His pale face was a mask of agony, and his grey eyes were glazed with lingering death that was taking agonizingly long to claim him. Richard reached over one hand and gently shut the lady's staring violet eyes, his green ones almost blurred now by the stream of tears coursing down his cheeks.
"R..Richard, i..is it you?" The suffering fair-haired man asked with laboured breaths,
"Aye, my friend." Richard replied, his voice choked, taking his friend's limp hand in his. In his hand, Ferdinand held a locket that the lady Marie-Claire had given him. It contained a miniature painting of her.
"Ri.richard, I..I i..implore you my dear cousin, t..to end my suffering now." Ferdinand beseeched, as Richard moved closer and held his friend's head in his lap.
"Aye Ferd," Richard said with a choked sob.
He reached for the dagger he had always carried in his left boot. Although he was twenty-one, Richard had never outgrown a boyish penchant for carving names and caricatures on every tree trunk he came across. The rest of his leisure time was spent playing his lute.
"Marie i..is already gone ... God rest her soul. G.g.good-bye my dear friend and cousin," Ferdinand whispered in a raspy, barely audible voice. He closed his eyes in expectation for what Richard was about to do. For a moment serenity filled his face and Richard hesitated in doubt. "Please d..do n..not make me wait any l..longer," Ferdinand implored, sensing Richard's hesitation.
"Good night cousin." Richard whispered, swallowing hard on the constricting lump in his throat as he crossed himself, then held Ferdinand's head back and made a swift clean slit across his pale throat.
With his last breath Ferdinand managed a raspy, "thank you," and with a look of serenity now and the hint of a smile on his lips, he released it.
Richard stood up and flung the dagger away, as though the object burned his hand. He would never again derive pleasure from it. Not after this.
Standing in the deepening dusk, oblivious to the chill in the air, his mind drifted back in time to the events that culminated in this tragedy...
* * * *
RICHARD, THE ONLY SON of a neighbouring baron, was a distant cousin of the Cardon boys, and had literally grown up with Ferdinand and Christian but had always been closer to Ferdinand. Ferdinand the younger of the two Cardon boys, was a year younger than Richard, and the bastard son of Lord Anthony Cardon. His mother had been a stunningly beautiful French woman with fair hair and smoky-grey eyes, named Hélène Etienne. No one knew much about her, except that she had come from Brittany many years before.
Lord Cardon, recently widowed with the new baby son to whom Hélène was a nanny, set his sights upon her. Richard had been only a year old then, but according to local gossip Hélène subsequently bore Lord Cardon a child; the one that lay dead at Richard's feet now. Lord Cardon eventually married again, a lady of his own social background whom he had met on a trip to London. Hélène left the household. However, before leaving, she lured the man into her bed once more, thus getting pregnant again, or so local gossips claimed. Those who had seen her before she departed had claimed that Hélène was breeding and there was no doubt about whom the prospective father might be. She left the first child behind.
The jealousy, and resentment of childhood, intensified as the boys grew: Ferdinand into a personable and adorable child, while Christian became a quarrelsome brat, insanely jealous of his younger half-brother. Feeling that everyone, even his father, favoured Ferdinand more than him, Christian was given to vicious temper tantrums that were usually vented on Ferdinand. Having learned of his position as the Cardon heir at a very early age, he couldn't understand why his father would choose to have Ferdinand educated and treated the same as him, when the latter was only a bastard and son of a servant to boot. The boys were tutored at home. By then Richard, loved by his Uncle Anthony, had joined the two boys, thus saving him from being sent away to boarding school. Richard and Ferdinand became best friends, which only increased Christian's seething jealousy.
In 1793 when the boys reached manhood, an aristocratic French family fleeing the revolution across the channel, came to Cardon Hall. Lord Cardon had been a friend of the Comte Priedieux with whom he had done business on the continent. So it really wasn't unexpected when he opened his home to the family, now in misfortune. For Cardon by nature, was a generous man.
The count had a lovely young daughter, Marie-Claire, with whom Ferdinand was immediately smitten, and she responded in kind to him. Master Christian lusted after the violet eyed, raven-haired beauty, only because Ferdinand loved her. It gave him immense pleasure to take away what Ferdinand wanted, as he had done since they were children. However, Christian hadn't been able to steal his father's affection and Richard's friendship and loyalty from his half brother. Thus Christian despised the young Master Carlyle.
The strife and animosity that had taken root in childhood, intensified among the young men, and could only culminate in a bitter end which was set into motion when Christian demanded that his father let him marry Lady Marie. Women in those days had no choice in such matters, especially a woman in Marie-Claire's position. In her family's now impoverished state, and her father fearing that he wouldn't be able to find a more suitable husband for her, she was forced to marry Christian since he and his father were willing to accept her without a dowry. All she had now was her title and the few pieces of jewelry she had quickly managed to sew into the hem of the dress she had been wearing, when they fled France.
Meanwhile, Christian had been conducting himself in a most courteous and gentlemanly manner, and had fooled everyone except Ferdinand and Richard into believing he had changed his ways. Ferdinand tried to dispute his brother's claim to the lady, and was cruelly reminded that Christian was the first-born and heir, and therefore, if he wanted the lady, he had first choice. It had been that way for generations within the family, and Lord Cardon wasn't about to break the tradition now. A few days later Ferdinand departed Cardon Hall, vowing to make a fortune, then he would return one day and take Marie away with him. Soon after his departure, Christian showed his true colours again, often given to bouts of drunkenness, licentiousness and cruelty toward his wife. She had no one but Richard, who had stayed on at Cardon Hall for her sake. The second Lady Cardon had died in childbirth as had her predecessor while the boys were in their early teenage years, so Marie had never known her. The child had also died along with her.
Richard would often bring along an old lute that had belonged to his great-grandfather, which he would play as he sang for Marie. While he had barely obtained passing marks in his academic studies, he excelled in the art of music. Any instrument put into his hand, literally became part of him as he played, but he was most attached to his old lute. Like it did for everyone else when he played for them, his music and song would always soothe Marie and take her mind off her troubles. And Richard felt the most appreciation of his music from her.
After his departure from Cardon Hall, Ferdinand returned occasionally, always in secret, to visit Marie, and it was those visits that gave her the strength to carry on.
Since he was the one who would secure a meeting place for the two, Richard was the only other person privy to these secret meetings. When Marie became pregnant with Ferdinand's child, they made plans to leave Cardon Hall together at last, as he now was able to support her. They planned to sail west to America, the New World.
Tonight they were going to put that plan into action, until this...
* * * *
RICHARD LOOKED DOWN once more at the two lifeless figures through tear blurred eyes. Just as he stooped to pick up the locket that had dropped from Ferdinand's limp hand on to the damp grass, a serving maid looked out the window and cried,
"Murder!"
Her cry set just about everyone in the castle astir and the next thing Richard knew, the whole household had gathered around him and the two murdered lovers. Through the noise and confusion ... for a hunting party was just returning and the baying of hounds was almost deafening, Richard explained what he had seen; how the two people on the grass had died. Lord Cardon believed Richard's account, and was not taken in by Christian's act of feigning grief over his dead wife as the man got down from his horse and knelt beside Marie, cradling her head in his lap.
Richard lunged at him, grabbed him by the collar, pulling him to his feet. He smelled the stench of spirits on Christian's breath.
"Lying murderer! I saw you kill them!" He slapped Christian across the face.
Christian looked at Richard with an exaggerated expression of shock. Drawing a deep breath as if to summon control, he then replied in an arrogant voice, his eyes dry and hard. "My dear cousin, are you sure it was me you saw? I've been with the hunting party for the last four hours, and haven't been anywhere near here." He turned to one of the men in the hunting party, "haven't I, Simon? Tell them man!"
The man nodded in the affirmative, but his expression said something else.
Christian, turning his attention back to Richard, added with a sneer, "but then again you've always hated me, so it's not unexpected that you would lay blame at my feet. However, my brother had a lot of enemies..."
"You drunken, lying whelp!" Richard's hands moved to Christian's throat as he grabbed him again and would have throttled him, had Lord Cardon not intervened and separated them.
"Now cease you two!" He thundered, turning to his son who started a tirade, berating Richard. "If I should find out that you are indeed responsible for this heinous act, I'll see that you rue it for the rest of your unholy life," he threatened Christian in a deadly quiet voice.
"Father, will you believe this hysterical creature over your own son?" Christian spat contemptuously. Meanwhile, the crowd had fallen silent. "Everyone knows that both he and my bastard brother there, would have liked to take Marie away from me..."
"Silence!" Lord Cardon, a tall and imposing man of fifty, glared at him. "Now leave me," he ordered Christian.
Three days later, following Ferdinand and Marie's interment in the family vault, Richard encountered Christian in the study. Deeply intoxicated, the man was babbling to himself, gloating over what he had done. A new spate of grief and rage washed over Richard, and he wanted to kill him. However, as Richard caught Christian's expression, he saw not just a drunk, but a raving lunatic as well. Richard hesitated, realizing Christian had received his just reward. Even lunacy was too good a punishment for him, but death would give him release.
Richard walked away leaving the drunken madman to his cups. However, an hour later while he was sitting in the library writing in the diary he kept, Christian staggered in.
Christian peered over Richard's shoulder to see what the younger man was writing. Disgusted at the sight of the man, as well as with the malodorous stench of his drunken breathing over him, Richard ordered Christian to leave him alone. A fight broke out as Christian tried to wrestle the diary away from him.
Richard scarcely remembered what happened until Christian lay sprawled on the floor with a silver letter opener plunged into his heart. In shock, bleeding from the scratches and blows he received during the altercation, with part of the torn diary in his hand, Richard Carlyle fled Cardon Hall never to be seen or heard from again.
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