Chapter seventeen:
''Formerly the Spinster of the Stage, actress Rose Dawson is spotted for the fourth time in seven days with American photographer Jack Dawson...''
''Stop reading that horse shit will you.''
Richard finished reading aloud and lowered the paper, staring at Jack with brows raised.
"What?" Jack asked, before enjoying a long drought of ale.
"Don't be coy. I saw Rose last night. That dress . . . What have you done to her? Before that she was as much as a spinster or so they say in the papers."
"Why don't you ask what she has done to me? That answer is far more profound, I assure you." Jack's gaze swept over the great room of the Gentlemen's Club. His casual perusal was met with many nods and smiles. He now understood the interest that had baffled him the week before. Everyone had known of his change in circumstance before he did. He was still catching up. Still reeling. He'd called on Albert's widow earlier in the day, a friend he'd lost in the war, attempting to ascertain her circumstances and offering whatever assistance she required. She would need a strong shoulder to lean upon, and he offered his to her, knowing how vital a loved one could be to the simple acts of rising in the morn and breathing. In return, she had given him something that could change so many things. He held her gift close to him. It was something which he would give to Rose.
"Your name, paired with Rose's is all I have heard all bloody day," Richard groused. "The announcement of an engagement is expected in tomorrow's gazettes, smothering all prurient interest with the blanket of propriety and respectability.''
Jack laughed aloud, drinking more of his ale.
''Is that right? Maybe there would have been an announcement last night, the notices would have appeared today, but I was . . . detained last night." Jack felt the colour of his cheeks simmer recalling making love in the backseat of a hackney horse-drawn carriage. ''I don't see why I have to announce a damned thing anyway. It isn't as though we plan to stay here longer than this week.''
''You're set on leaving?''
''Yes. Tomorrow, maybe the day after. Neither of us are cut out for this life.''
"What of your parents?" Richard asked. "What of Albert's widow?"
Jack shrugged, feeling a sharp pang of regret but no responsibility for it. "My parents have been dead for longer than I remember and Fiona will be all right. She has given me more than her blessing to return to the States. Why is it so hard to believe that I could just leave?"
The crumpling of the newspaper drew Jack's attention to Richard's clenching fists. He wondered what he'd said to elicit such a response. Then he noted that his friend was looking beyond him. Following the line of Richards's gaze, Jack glanced over his shoulder and saw Stuart Black enter the room, and behind him, entirely separately, an Earl; he some connections with the theatre apparently, with a boisterous pack of cronies about him.
"What has rattled your cage?'' Jack settled himself back into the chair.
''That Earl of Something-or other. He was engaged to Lisa before she was with me. He was abusive to her, hit her senseless.''
''Is that why you moved to the sea?''
"Mostly, yes."
"I had no idea. You concealed it well, your love for her."
Waving one hand carelessly, Richard said, "I was adept at hiding it from myself as well. I convinced myself that my interest was base and easily resolved by indulgence. In hindsight, that self-deception was probably wise. If I'd known then that she would turn me so completely around and inside out, I might have run in terror."
"You do seem different," Jack mused, studying him. "Less agitated. Calmer. Tamed perhaps. Lisa does have a brilliant effect on you. Married life suits you."
"Bloody hell, lower your voice when you say such things." Raucous laughter drew Richard's attention back over Jack's shoulder.
"Excuse me a moment."
Jack sighed and shook his head, taking another drink. In truth, he didn't understand the point of the men gathering here in a place like this, either. The only reason Jack was sitting in a Gentleman's club was because he didn't have Rose to go home to. Clara had taken her shopping and to have lunch, potentially for the last outing which she would have in London.
"Stuart." Jack looked up at Rose's friend and smiled.
"Dawson. How are you?"
"Too well. May I join you a moment?"
"Absolutely."
"I won't monopolise much of your time." Jack smiled and took an empty seat next to Stuart's at the gambling table. He didn't plan to have a game himself; those days were long gone,
"Forgive me in advance for my boldness, but why are you in a house of gentlemanly activities when you are with Miss. Dawson?''
Jack sensed how his tone wasn't too certain. ''I was simply drinking with a friend.''
"Yes." Stuart's eyes, renowned for their rare onyx colour, lit with humour. "I know that me and you are both alike in more ways than we care to even think. We both fought in the war that changed us and we both care deeply for the same woman."
Jack stilled.
''You're in love with her?''
''No. I never could be. Perhaps if I knew that she wasn't hung up on the man she knew before the war then I could have married her years ago. It turned out that man was you.''
"Jesus Christ," Jack muttered, understanding that knowledge. ''How long have you known her?''
''Four years.'' Stuart took a long pull from his ale. ''She was so fragile. So lost. She got on that stage and she just shone. They loved her right away. Now, only we know the true reasons for that gorgeous performance.'' Tapping the rim of his tumbler, he pointed to Jack. ''Because of you. Because of the war breaking her in a thousand pieces and it was only this week she has collected herself again.'' Stuart nursed his drink, circling it frequently. ''She was fresh from the boat. She wasn't too keen on sailing. She had gone from France to New York and then after a few months with the play over there she followed it here and just like that, she was a minor star. I met her before we started rehearsal; she was a quiet, fragile girl who barely even said 'hello' to the cleaner, but then she was Katherine and became a war widow. A woman in love. A woman nursing a broken soul. All because that's who she truly was.''
The words were like bullets to Jack's chest. Suddenly, he was in pain again. Just like he had been another time...a time when he too had been so lost and broke beyond what he thought was unrepairable.
Three years earlier...
Jack did not see the sharp turn approaching. Even with a clear head, he could not have navigated it safely. He was going too fast. The rain made the road too slick.He pulled the brake lever with all his strength, but he kept sliding. The front end of the motorcar ripped through a thorny hedgerow. The tangled branches slapped the bonnet, then the windscreen, and, finally, tore through the canvas top of the motorcar. Jack felt the roof give way, peeling back like an old tin of kippers, ripping the tweed cap off his head.He held on for dear life as the car careened through the hedgerow and out into a pasture. It rolled-once, twice sending his battered body flying off the seat. He felt the slap of grass and mud. Suddenly, it was in his mouth, his eyes. Even his ears. He couldn't see. Couldn't hear. As his chest smashed against the wooden steering wheel again and again, he couldn't breathe, couldn't scream.
The car came to rest on its side. Jack lay in a tangled heap of canvas and wood, his limp body hanging half in and half-out of the motorcar. The big, beautiful engine hissed in agony. One of the headlamps still worked, shooting a sad beam of light awkwardly into the wet earth. Beyond that, there was not a light or a sound, save the faded moon and still-driving rain.No one would pass here for hours. Help might not come until daybreak. It would be a miracle if he lasted that from the wreckage. His leather driving gloves saved his hands from being sliced to ribbons. His Burberry's greatcoat and heavy tweeds protected the rest of him from the broken glass and metal shrapnel that blanketed the muddy ground.
Jack stood on shaking legs. He felt himself all-over. No broken bones, but certainly a couple of bruised ribs. Every time he sucked in air; his chest caught.He reached over and cut the ignition. The car went quiet. Jack stood in the wreckage, pelted by rain and wind. Cold mud seeped through his trousers. He'd freeze to death out here in the elements-injured, exposed, and sick from withdrawal.
Christ. He needed to go for help.
He took a few tentative steps toward the road. His brown leather brogues sank in mud up to his ankles. Thank God for sturdy boots. They held fast as he put one foot in front of the other, fighting through the mire. He doubled over and retched in the road. Jack wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and kept walking. The rain hadn't let up. The wind twisted the few sparse trees overhead. Not until a flash of lightning lit the sky did, he realise there was a gate up ahead.
Jack put his shoulder into it and pushed until the hinges groaned. The iron gate inched open just enough for him to fit through. Luck was on his side so far-he could've been killed in that wreck, or forced to die in the elements.At last, he reached the country lane. He climbed through the thorny hedgerow, and stood in the middle of the road. He scanned the nearby hills for lamplight or chimney smoke, but the night was as cold and black as it ever was. Jack walked for miles without encountering another soul. He hugged his tattered greatcoat tighter, fighting the wind and rain that cut to his bones, stopping once or twice to vomit.
He was past the tremors stage. Now, he'd entered into gut-wrenching sickness. When there was nothing left in his stomach to heave up, he retched until he spit blood. Damned morphine. He was going to die out here, alone and afraid, without anything to take the edge off.His muscles cried out in agony. His veins begged for precious morphine. His body couldn't understand why the needle wasn't there. It didn't care that he couldn't get the stuff in the middle of nowhere. He'd never gone this long without an injection. The pangs had never been this strong even at their worst-and it frightened him to know just how powerful a hold the medicine had on him.
Jack knew he'd do anything to stave off withdrawal, if only for a moment. He'd walk until his feet bled, until his heart burst from exhaustion. The rain didn't matter. His injuries couldn't stop him. He dragged one foot forward, then another. One step at a time toward the promise of morphine that called to him through the night.
Jack must have looked ill, or perhaps just pale. Stuart glanced at him; eyebrows raised and he received a drowsy nod in return.
"If you ever require assistance or just a sympathetic ear," Stuart said smoothly, as if he hadn't just shaken Jack to the core, "I would be honoured to assist you."
"We soldiers must stick together?" Jack queried, refraining from asking questions he wasn't sure he wished to know the answers to.
"Something of that nature."
"Thank you."
There was someone worth keeping in one's corner; perhaps Stuart Black was one of them. The man was quiet, yet honest. Seemingly impeccably dressed, well-mannered and a talented actor.
''Is your lady all right?'' Jack tried to change the subject as he felt the tremors shooting through his body. Stabbing at his legs. It was hard to ignore.
''My lady?''
''Y-yes,'' he stammered, through his drowsy state. ''C-Clara is it?''
''Yes, she was fine as of this morning, why ask?'' Black browed knitted together until shouts came from the bar. Stuart pushed agilely to his feet. "If you will excuse me, Jack."
Jack looked over his shoulder at the rowdy Earl's boisterous associates. They were about as large as Jack, if not a little leaner and about three inches smaller.
Standing, Jack looked for Richard and found him handing over a pound coin to a prostitute, who was playing and slackening his bow tie. It was then that he noticed his legs could barely carry him. Sirens seemed to be blasting out into a long and endless abyss and then it turned to a scream. He saw it then; her and red.
Always red.
Richard was slowly led away, upstairs with a whore. He would cheat on the woman who he had just married. Just given his heart to. The business was now all his; the gallery which Jack had worked so endlessly to put together, all now disintegrated but he hadn't felt a damned thing but relief signing those papers.
Stuart was at the bar, relentlessly arguing with the famous Earl. Two or three cronies swamped him, the boisterous bastard smoking a cheroot. Jack could feel his heart beating into his ears, the blooding pumping faster and faster...as though adrenaline was kicking in without a reason to.
The Earl's tone seemed calm. Cool. Casual. Inside, there was no doubt he was wrecked. In the dim light of the room Jack saw the reflective glint of the pistol in the Earl's right hand; a trembling hand. There was not a whisper of fear about Jack; facing him was nothing more than a coward.
Jack could make out bits of the conversation. It was as though his hearing was dipping in and out; like trying to tune in the wireless to a connected station.
''And, I suppose you are the chap able to do that for her? We both know that you have nothing. That you are nothing.''
''No, I don't suppose I am.'' Stuart smiled. ''Why don't you just go? Let her live her life.'' Stuart was reasoning with the man firstly, if that was possible, or so it seemed. A man would not like the battered and bruised ego of losing a woman to another man; a man of a lower station than he, but at least this way, perhaps the Earl could go down without any public knowledge and he could concoct whatever lie he wished to protect his own name and then go on to live his own life.
Then, it was apparent to Jack. Something was tormenting his body. It was the same sorcery as before he would attack during the war. The same tingle he got just before the mustard gas attack. Before he would wound or-
In one lunge forward, two cronies sprinted toward to Stuart, but it was Jack suddenly who was slamming into them both, tumbling against the Earl and sending him crashing backwards. Together they tumbled down onto the floor, the pistol temporarily forgotten as it had fell from his grip. As Jack's reflexes kicked in, he rolled away from the punches which both cronies had tried to rein down on his face, his chest and stomach.
"Umph!" Air came out of Jack's lungs like whiskey out of a shot glass. His knees bent against his will but he managed to block the next punch with his right forearm while reaching blindly for the empty glass of ale with his left…
He was a soldier again. At war. Always at damned war. Why was there never any peace? Must God chase him to the ends of the Earth with taunts or perhaps the Devil had found him after all and decided that even though his saviour was alive and well, that wasn't enough. It was never enough.
Red. It was everywhere. It was warm, across his face, his hands and it trickled down into his lap as he was suddenly on the floor. Blinking once and twice, watery eyes saw past the red and-
''Jack! Come on, man!''
He blinked again.
Blood.
There was no pain.
There was a crack. It was sickening.
That crack was one he was used to hearing...
Necks breaking.
Bones snapping.
The end of life.
Perhaps this was the end of his.
And then a loud BANG! Gunshot. Just like the ones Jack had fired in the war.
His breathing had stalled but certainly not stopped and his ears were still thudding with the sound of his own heartbeat.
''Jack! Get up!''
He blinked again. Stuart Black was on his knees, pulling at Jack to stand. Why couldn't he stand? The once newly pressed three-piece suit he had adorned was torn, hanging limply from his body which was covered in scratches. His face was red splattered. All about them, the floor was—red.
''W-what happened?''
''He would have killed me, if it wasn't for you.'' Stuart was clutching at Jack, pulling his feet,
''Me?''
Turning over his palms, Jack came face to face with his own palms—blood stained. Cut. But steady.
''The fuckin' Earl was not a man who could fight well. I already knew that. Perhaps that's why he sent his cronies in and ran off the second that you hit the first one. The man was always the delegator of the dirty work and not one to dirty his own hands.''
''Are they dead?''
''No, but they should be.'' Stuart raised his head to the gun which was discarded upon the two beaten cronies laying still on the floor. ''You shot the fat one in the kneecap. He will never walk again.''
''Why were they starting with you?''
''Because of Rose. They thought she was with me. They have heard rumours of her leaving town and she's a nice earner for the Earl's bloody theatre.''
''That was over Rose?''
''Yes. I thought that's why you came over.''
It was suddenly as though the Earth had tilted and had been shaken about chronically. Was it possible to step back in time to a raging war which had ended so many years before?
Time paused. Raced. Paused.
It was daylight and then dawn and then night. It was all one, long blur in which Jack didn't come to recall how he was stood outside a door, a green door. With a glass vial in one hand and the need to inject it pulsing through him with such a force that his legs finally crashed beneath him.