In The Bleak Midwinter

In The Bleak Midwinter

Prologue: September, 1813 -- Northern Spain

Thomas Featherstone had never had any luck. As a child, he was always the one caught with his hand in the sweet jar, as a youth he was invariably holding the cricket bat when an unlucky strike sailed through a window and as a young man about town he had lost more than his fair share of funds at the gaming tables. Therefore, when his childhood sweetheart Lady Emily Fairchild refused his offer of marriage for the third time, he wished to take no chances with the fourth. After a long hard look in the mirror, Thomas decided that he lacked dash. Feeling the need to completely revise Emily's opinion of his unprepossessing self, he thought his beloved would like nothing more than to see him in a cavalry uniform. After careful consideration of his options, he chose the silver and blue of the 16th Light Dragoons. Thomas never figured that the war in the Iberian Peninsula would drag on through his year of training, or that the Dragoons's casualties would be so severe as to warrant his call to the field before Emily could even see him wearing that proud uniform.

Dismayed at the prospect of war, Thomas nonetheless comforted himself on his journey by envisioning his heroic welcome home once Napoleon was safely put away. Alas, there was no such glory waiting for him in Spain. Two weeks after his arrival Thomas was struck down, not by a French sabre, or a musket ball, but with a putrid sore throat.

He was carted to the hospital by sympathetic comrades and was settled on a cot in a room crowded with other ill and wounded officers. After his friends had left him, Thomas lay for a while feeling utterly abandoned and very ill. He tried to distract himself from his own misery by studying the man occupying the adjacent cot. He seemed to be in a much worse case than Thomas. He lay perfectly still, his head and arm swathed in bandages, a hectic flush on his cheeks, his breath drawn in harsh, irregular gasps. The surgeon standing over him merely frowned and shook his head before moving on to Thomas' side.

"Poor devil," the surgeon said as he peered down Thomas' throat. "I expect he'll not last the night."

"Who is he?" Thomas whispered.

"Major Jack Vere, 95th Rifles. Brother of the Marquis of Leighton. Death is no respecter of persons, I'm afraid."

"What happened to him?"

"Shot by the French, fell off his horse and down a cliff. Hasn't waked in two weeks. And I don't expect him to wake now." With a sigh of regret, the surgeon patted Thomas on the head. "You, I expect will recover quickly. I'll have you out and about in three days."

The surgeon was no better a prognosticator than he was a doctor. Three days later, Major Vere, confounding everyone, regained consciousness and Thomas Featherstone died.

************

Jack Vere was as astonished as everyone else that he should recover. He should have died: indeed, he thought he had. In one fevered, chaotic dream he remembered seeing a light at the end of an impossibly long tunnel. Hearing familiar laughter, he walked toward the light and slowly as if frost on a window were dissolving, the image became clearer. He had seen his parents, both deceased, looking young and in love. They seemed to be waiting for him to join them. Beckoned by that bright light and promise of warmth and joy, Jack had approached, only to find that he could not reach across the void. He had called out, imploring.

His mother smiled sadly and shook her head. "Jack, dearest, it is not time for you to come here."

"But it is!" he had cried. "I am tired of pain. Tired of fighting to live. Please, mama. I beg you! I am so alone!"

"Not alone, Jack. Never alone. You must find another path, my love." And her image had faded into hazy light. Then the pain had come back, but differently. Not the pain of despair and death, but the pain of healing and consciousness. Jack opened his eyes.