'He might live.'
'Might live…' Anne whispered.'I thought you could help us.'
'My dear lady, there are only so many things a doctor can do to help his patients. Your boy is weak. I've seen many like this. Some are lost very quickly. Others linger for days, weeks even, before succumbing. Some survive.'
'But what can be done for him?'
'Keep him warm.Try to feed him as often as you can.You must also rub him with an ointment I'll leave with you. Once in the morning and once at night. It's a stimulant. It may well mean the difference between life and death. The child may cry when you apply it, but you must ignore any tears and continue the treatment. Understand?'
'Yes.'
'Now, my coat, please. I'll have the bill sent round in the morning. I bid you both good night, then.'
As soon as the doctor had left, Garrett slipped down into a chair close to the crib and stared helplessly at the baby. Arthur's eyes flickered open for a moment, but the rest of his body seemed as limp and lifeless as before. Garrett watched for a while longer, then rubbed his tired eyes.
'You should go to bed,' Anne said quietly. 'You're exhausted. You need to rest.You must be strong in the coming days. I'll need your support. So will he.'
'His name is Arthur.'
'Yes. I know. Now go to bed. I'll stay here with him.'
'Very well.'
As Garrett left the room, his wife stared down at the baby, stroking her brow wearily.
The next day Anne continued to try to feed the child, but he took little of her milk and shrank away before their eyes. At first the application of the ointment made the infant howl, but after a few moments, Anne discovered that he quickly sought out the comfort of her breast once smeared with the ointment, which smelled faintly of alcohol.
Anne and Garrett kept his birth a close secret, not wishing to have endless visits from concerned friends and relatives. They did not even send word back to their home in Dangan to let their other children know about their new brother.
Then, on the fourth day after his birth, an excited Anne burst into her husband's study to tell him that Arthur was feeding properly at last. And slowly, as he continued to feed, he gained weight and colour and began to wriggle and writhe as infants should. Until at last it was clear that he would live. Only then, on the first of May, over three weeks after his birth did the parents announce the birth of Arthur Wesley, third son of the Earl of Mornington, in the Dublin papers.
Chapter 3
Corsica, 1769
Archdeacon Luciano had just begun the blessing when Letizia's waters broke. She had been standing in a pool of light cast by a bright sun shining fully through the high arched window behind the altar of the Cathedral in Ajaccio. It was a hot August day and the light carried a searing heat with it, so that she felt warm and prickly beneath the dark folds of her best clothes, the ones she wore only for mass. Letizia felt perspiration trickle under her arms, cool enough to make her shiver. And, as if in response, the child inside the grossly swollen lump of her stomach lashed out with its limbs.
Letizia smiled. So different from her first child. Giuseppe had lain in her womb so still that she had feared another stillborn baby. But he was a fine healthy little boy now. Meek as a lamb. Not like the one inside her, who even now seemed to be struggling to burst upon the world. Perhaps it was due to the nature of his conception and the life that she and Carlos had been forced to lead during her pregnancy. For over a year they had been fighting the French: long months of trekking across the craggy mountains and hidden valleys of Corsica as they set ambushes for French patrols, or attacked one of their outposts, killing its garrison, then fleeing into the interior before the inevitable column of infantry arrived to hunt them down. Months of hiding in caves, in the company of the rough band of peasants that Carlos commanded. Patriots, hunted down like animals.
It was in such a cave, she recalled, that the child had been conceived. On a bitter winter evening, shortly before Christmas, as she and Carlos lay on a bed of pine branches, covered in worn and soiled blankets. Around them, their followers had slept on, or pretended to, as their leader and his young wife moved quietly beneath their coverings. She had felt no shame over it. Not when the next day might bring death for either, or both of them, leaving Giuseppe an orphan in the house of his grandparents.
They had fought the invaders through the winter, into the first flushes of spring, and all the while Letizia felt the life growing inside her.With the early successes of the rebellion, Carlos and the other patriots had been so sure of victory that General Paoli abandoned his small war of ceaseless skirmishes and led his forces into battle at Ponte Nuovo. There they had been roundly beaten by the ordered ranks and massed volleys of professional soldiers. Hundreds of men cut down; their passion for Corsican independence no defence against the lead musket balls that whirled through their ranks. A waste of fine men, thought Letizia. Paoli had squandered their lives for nothing. After Ponte Nuovo the surviving patriots were driven into the mountains, there to remain until Paoli fled from the island and the triumphant French offered an amnesty to the men deserted by their general.
Letizia had been with child for seven months by that time, and Carlos, fearing for her health, and by no means content to spend any more time living like a savage, had accepted the enemy's offer. Within a week they had returned to their home in Ajaccio. The struggle was over. Corsica, so long the property of Genoa, had a fleeting taste of independence and was now the possession of France. And so the child inside her would be born French.
Without warning Letizia felt an explosion of fluids between her thighs and gasped in surprise as she snatched a hand to her mouth in an instant of confusion and fear.
Carlos turned to her quickly. 'Letizia?'
She stared back, wide-eyed. 'I must leave.'
Faces nearby turned towards them with disapproving expressions. Carlos tried to ignore them. 'Leave?'
'The child,' she whispered. 'It's coming. Now.'
Carlos nodded, slipped an arm round her thin shoulders and with a quick bow of his head towards the huge gold cross on the altar, he led his wife down the aisle towards the entrance to the cathedral. Letizia gritted her teeth and waddled slightly as she made for the doors. Outside in the dazzling sunshine, Carlos shouted at the bearers of a nearby sedan chair. At first they didn't move, but then stirred when they saw that the woman was in pain. Carlos gently handed her inside and gave curt directions to their house.The bearers raised the sedan from the ground and set off. Carlos trotted alongside, casting anxious glances at his wife as she sat on the narrow seat, clenching her teeth and gripping the window frames tightly. The bearers grunted under their load and soon their breaths came in sharp gasps as their footsteps echoed off the sun-bleached houses crowding the narrow streets of Ajaccio.
A sharp cry drew Carlos closer and he looked on in terror at his wife's tightly clenched face.
'Letizia,' he panted, and forced himself to smile as she glanced sidelong at him. 'Not far, my love.'
Letizia lowered her head and groaned. 'It's coming!'
'Faster!' Carlos shouted at the bearers. 'For pity's sake. Faster!'
The sedan lurched round a corner, and there ahead of them lay the house, a large, plain building on three floors.
'There!' Carlos pointed. 'That one!'
The bearers set the sedan down heavily, causing its passenger to cry out once more, and Carlos cursed them, even as he wrenched the flimsy door open and lifted his wife out. He threw a few coins to the bearers, fumbled for the key in the fob of his waistcoat, rattling it into the iron lock, then thrusting the door open.
Inside the house the air was cool and musty. Letizia panted in quick sharp breaths and desperately stared round the dark interior.
'That chair.' She nodded to a low, worn couch in the corner. 'Help me down.'