Fortunate Son (3 page)

“Seámus.” Fynn touched Jemmy's shoulder, whispering. “Seámus, m'boy, ‘tis time for ye t'go. Up t' the altar.”

Jemmy wiped his hot cheeks with the back of one hand as he stood, slipping into the aisle. He reluctantly walked to the front. Behind him he heard deep murmurs, but no distinguishable words. As he stopped at the coffin, a clerk took his arm, leading him to one side. People began to course by, men unknown to him, greeting him as the new Earl, calling him lord, saying things in memorial about his father, a man they had surely never known.

Thirty minutes later, the eight bells of Christ Church Cathedral began their dirge, shaking the brisk Dublin air. Emerging up from the crypt, Jemmy walked up and out, into the light, beyond the stone columns, past the cold faces, through the door of the south transept, and out into the churchyard. The throng of the elite, the spectators, stood about, clustered in dark little pockets of self-appointed supremacy. To Jemmy they were more like clumps of black peat. The sun had broken through the grey sky at last, and Jemmy squinted trying to spot Fynn.

“James Annesley!” a voice thundered.

“Aye?” Jemmy looked up, shielding his eyes from the brightness.

“Just what do you think you're doing here, knave?” The man was advancing on horseback, two other horsemen close behind.

“What business do ye have with the lad?” Fynn was at Jemmy's side. Jemmy could now see the man, mounted high, haughty and proud, the angular face scowling down at them. He saw the man's gold cravat, cropped wig, blue three-corner hat. Nothing dark, no mourning clothes. The only black was in those eyes.

“My business is none of your concern, stable boy,” the man growled at Fynn. “Remove your nasty heretic arse from this holy yard.”

“B'God ye'd best declare yerself, if ye wish t' survive yer tongue!”

“A challenge!” The man spun his spirited mount on the churchyard turf, the hooves spattering wet clumps of mud on Fynn and the people crowded around.

The big Irishman, John Purcell, charged, brandishing a walking stick. “Get yer English arse down!” His guttural boom reverberating off the stone walls. Just as quickly, the other two Englishmen spurred their mounts toward him. Shouts and neighing erupted in Jemmy's ears. He stepped back from the commotion, seeing the glint of a steel scabbard, hearing the ring of a blade slipping free. Silence descended. Everything stopped. Except the bells which continued their tolling far overhead. Fynn was once again beside Jemmy, John Purcell was being held back by the tip of a rapier, and Seán was standing wide-eyed on the far churchyard wall.

“Now,” began the man. “Now that you've closed your Catholic gobs, I'll speak t' the young runt.” Infused with anger, a hint of brogue slid through the man's efforts to maintain his English composure.

Juggy stepped forward, clasping Jemmy by the elbow. “What do ya want with the young lord? He's just buried his father, so he has. Tis that not enough? Or didn't ya know?”

“Aye, so he's just buried his father.” The man smirked, lowering his voice to a whisper. “But what do you know of it?” His lips curled to a grin. “I am the corpse's brother.”

“Richard Annesley,” Fynn said, reciting the name flatly.

“M'da has no brother,” Jemmy said. “He—”

“Aye, but he did, Seámus. He did indeed.” Fynn was slowly advancing. “So Richard, where's yer black beard? Or aren't ye hiding behind no more?”

“Stand back!” Richard drew his pistol, cocking it. “Stand back, Irish cur!”

Fynn stopped, then raised his arms, smiling. “Wouldn't want t' be upsettin' ye. Ney. That wouldn't do—now would it? Considering how upset ye must be over the loss of yer dear brother.” Richard shifted in his saddle, but kept his aim steady. “Let me think on this,” Fynn continued, now feigning contemplation. “If I be right, ye've come t' claim the title and property of the Earlship for yerself. Aye?” He turned, patting the rump of the horse beside Richard. “And this here must be the arse of Captain Bailyn.”

Bailyn jerked his horse around. “Get yer b'deviled hand off m'horse!” He spat at Fynn through two crooked yellow teeth. His thin face was pale, unshaven, smallpox scarred.

Fynn smirked. “Good God, Bailyn, ye're more ugly than last we saw ye.”

Richard motioned Bailyn back. “Kennedy, the boy is a bastard. Ye know ‘tis so.”

“I am not!” Jemmy burst.

“Ye say he is, do ye?” said Fynn. “Of course ye do.”

Juggy stepped in front of Jemmy. “So whose child ya say he is?”

“Ah, m'lady,” Richard began. “I'd think you'd be the Betty t' answer that.” Juggy's face tightened, her cheeks growing red.

“Damn ye!” Fynn erupted. “I'll not stand for yer insults against the lady or the lad.”

“Lady, say you?” Richard spurred his horse sideways, placing his pistol against Fynn's temple, knocking off Fynn's hat. “I told you, maggot, step away.” As Fynn took one deliberate step back, Richard grabbed Juggy by the collar, dragging her to his saddle, pressing her smooth face against the leather. He leaned down to her ear, his eyes and pistol still aimed at Fynn. “As you're aware, I speak true when I say the knave is the son of a whore. Aye, Mistress Mackercher?” He released her with a slight shove.

As Juggy stumbled back, Jemmy charged. “Ye're not my uncle! I have no uncle!” Just as he bolted by the third horseman, the man kicked out a spur, slicing Jemmy's right cheek, knocking him to the mud. He clutched his jaw, blood streaming through his fingers. Juggy was to him but he was already on his feet, backing up, refusing her, glaring at everyone.

“Now hear me, all of ye!” shouted Richard, straightening in his saddle. “This bastard boy goes by the name James Annesley, claiming to be the son of the widow Mary Annesley, once Lady Anglesea. But as you all well know, my brother was a drunken whoremonger and this boy is but a whore's son. He is a charlatan. An imposter and a liar. I am Lord Richard Annesley, the one and true Earl of Anglesea. And so help me, I'll hang the one of ye who says otherwise.” He pointed his pistol at Jemmy. “Starting with you.”

Jemmy stared back, eyes narrowing.

— trial transcript, Annesley v. Anglesea, 1743

Misty fog, aglow in the morning's half-light, settled over St. Stephen's Green, the vast open land on the western edge of Dublin. In a remote corner a meandering creek murmured along, slicing through a pale meadow, dividing trees—trees which sheltered the moist grass and the damp rocks which had tumbled from stone walls overgrown with ferns. It was early, yet the blackbirds were already beginning to fuss and caw. Time crept by, as had the five months since the funeral dirge that continued to play. Jemmy was sitting against one of those enormous oaks. He was focused, his mouth agape, the pink scar etched along his right cheek pointed to his hands where he was trying to count the legs of an orange centipede—he had not made it past seventeen. He would get the poisonous creature to cling to a small stick, its crittery back coiled into a tight ball. Then he would start counting. But whenever he would get to about seventeen, the vermin would uncurl, crawling quickly to the other end of the stick. With no desire to hold the thing, he would quickly invert the stick and begin counting yet again. “Ah, ye little turd,” he whispered as it touched his hand, spawning a cold shiver. Hearing the sound of someone approaching, he peered around the trunk. It was Seán ambling toward him, carelessly swatting bushes with a sapling stick. “Seán!” Jemmy stood, his filthy wet clothes sticking to him. “Look at this!” Just then the centipede raced across his hand and up his arm. Jemmy shouted, flinching, whacking his chin with the stick, hurling the creature high into the tree.

“M'God! Get it off me!” Seán was immediately screaming. “Get it off me!”

Jemmy raced around the giant oak to see Seán writhing on the ground, kicking and swatting at the empty air, demon-possessed, wild-eyed and scared. “What's at ye?” Jemmy shouted. An orange flash tumbled from Seán's waistcoat, scurrying for cover under the leaves.

Seán didn't stop. “‘Tis bitting me! ‘Tis killing me!” He kept thrashing.

“Stop, will ye! Take in some air! ‘Tis gone!” Jemmy suppressed a grin.

Seán was panting, his round face pink, blue eyes wide. “Jumped on m'face!”

Jemmy helped him up. “‘Twas nothing Seán. Nothing.”

“Nay, ‘twas something big!” His hands wriggled over his head and chest. “Ye see it?”

“Perhaps just a little—” His mouth creased into a grin.

“‘Twas nasty with big teeth! Fangs! Fangs, Jemmy! I saw ‘em, I did!”

Jemmy was fighting back tears of laughter, struggling to keep control. It was nearly unbearable—Seán's terrified face and one orange centipede running scared.

“It had a million legs, it did!”

That was it. Jemmy roared with laughter, stuttering, “I'm sorry, Seán. Did m'best. But I counted only seventeen!” Then the dam broke and he dropped to his knees, lurching forward to the ground, giggling hysterically. Sean stopped and stared, totally confused, which only made Jemmy laugh harder. Finally Jemmy settled, feeling the cut under his chin. “So? Did ye bring me some food this mornin'?”

“Da wouldn't let me,” Seán mumbled.

“Why not?” Jemmy soured rapidly at the thought of no breakfast. His jaw may have ached a bit, but his stomach burned.

“Said ye're being mule-headed to stay here. Said there's no reason to stay away from him. Ye aren't protecting nobody out here, least not yerself. Said ye should come back t' Mr. Purcell's.”

“I don't care what he says,” Jemmy blurted. Silence hovered and they sat in it, motionless, watching a man canter his horse across the far end of the green. The beast's snorts steamed in the early air. “If I'm there at Purcell's, that fathead Richard and his men will come. I know it. I'll stay hidden till this is gone.”

Seán pulled himself to his feet. “‘Tis not going t' just pass, I don't think.” He walked a few paces to the creek bank. Swollen gusts whipped the leaves above, and a few wrens and yellow-winged hammer birds began to fill the morning with warble and echoing song. “I miss Dunmain.”

“Aye,” said Jemmy. They were thinking of the Annesleys' country estate in southern Ireland, the land where both he and Seán were born, where they had played the first ten years of their lives. Seán was born in the servants' quarters, the son of the stablemaster. Jemmy was born in his mother's bedchamber, one of the twenty-eight rooms of the lavish Dunmain House. Jemmy longed for the rolling green hills, the forests, the long stone fences, the random ruins and ancient abbeys lying in wait to be discovered. But he did not miss the house. The immense, cold house held a trove of bad memories—his father beating him, his mother leaving.

“Jemmy!” Seán blurted. “Look at this!”

As Jemmy stepped beside Seán, his eyes followed Seán's outstretched finger down toward the creek. Lying half-exposed in the slick clay was a human skull, peering back at them, peering up into the world, neither entering nor departing, the crown cracked slightly, polished white by water and sun. “M'soul!” Jemmy whispered, staring into its dark eye sockets. “Who do ye think it is?”

“Probably Friar O'Conner.” Seán smirked. “After a night of ale. ‘Tis begob.” Jemmy's smile rolled into a chuckle, imagining the old, fat friar falling drunk into the creek. But the skull just stared back. Sean became serious and whispered, “Da says there's bones of Celtic giants buried in Dublin. All ‘round us.”

“Ye think this is one of Cuchulainn's knights?”

“Maybe.”

“Perhaps, Seán,” whispered Jemmy, “‘tis Cuchulainn himself.” Both boys plopped down on the bank, smiles dissolving, bright eyes warily returning the solemn stare of the great mythic giant.

“Nah,” Seán said, recovering, shoving Jemmy. “Can't be. ‘Tisn't big enough.”

“Ye never know. Maybe ‘tis.” The skull made Jemmy feel strange, knotting his stomach. The stone image of the woman in Christ Church flashed in his mind—the bright effigy bursting upon him, white-hot light, then gone. Rolling to his back, he stretched his lanky legs across the grass and surveyed the living green rippling overhead. Flashes of distant cyan and white-blue glinted through the calico canopy, dropping down in wispy slants of gold that illuminated the boys below. Closing his eyes, he soaked the light in, the soothing coolness. Soon he began absently humming a tune that he loved, that haunted him. He could hear his mother's delicate voice caressing him with it:

“What are ye going t'do?” asked Seán. At that moment, like the aimless tune adrift, an indifferent emperor moth floated gracefully over their heads. Jemmy watched it, enchanted. It was a brilliant apparition, gliding, flicking its wings, disappearing as magically as it had arrived. Seán pressed on, breaking the spell, “Will ye go away with yer mum, now that—”

“What'll I do?” Jemmy grinned. “I'll put that skull on a stick and chase Juggy with it!”

“Ye know I wasn't talkin' about the skull. I meant—”

“Juggy'd forgive me. She'd beat yer measly arse, but she'd forgive me.”

“Ye're a wee prick, ye are!”

Though Jemmy was only twelve, soon to be thirteen, he understood why the local men teased him about Juggy. Joan Landy, “Juggy,” once the Annesleys' kitchen maid, had wet-nursed young Master James. Some of the cruder men had implored him to recount the experience, at which he would bolt away. Nevertheless, he loved Juggy like a mother and knew she treasured him in return. Indeed she showed him more concern than anyone else did, except maybe Fynn. She laughed with Jemmy, teased him, listened to him when he needed to talk. And though he adored Juggy, he knew his mother, Mary, flatly despised her, referring to her as “Madam Mack.”

Juggy grew up with her brother, Daniel Mackercher, in an Edinburgh orphanage. When she was older she moved to London to serve the estate of Jemmy's maternal-grandfather, John Sheffield, the First Duke of Buckingham, working in the bowels of the Duke's new palace which he had only recently constructed. There she was taken in by the Landys, also serving the Duke. Hungry for a family to call her own, she took their surname, leaving Mackercher far behind. When Arthur and Mary were married, Joan Landy came to Ireland as part of the Annesley household. She had served them ever since. As far back as Jemmy could remember, a prattling of “lil' Scotty lass” tales and “Miss Juggy” stories had been bandied about. The one he heard most was when Juggy first arrived in Ireland, how she had been seen secreting about with his father. He was not sure what “secreting about” meant, but no doubt that was why his mother hated her so much. Perhaps it was the same “secreting about” rumored between his mother and a tanner named Palliser—his father sliced clean the man's ear, who in turn took out Arthur's eye. He would ask his mother, thought Jemmy. Someday. When he saw her again. If he ever did. No, he would ask
Juggy. Juggy would tell him the truth.

“Ach.” Seán's voice was tight. “Will ye be going away with yer mum, or won't ye?”

Jemmy sighed, rolling his eyes. There was no escaping Seán when he had an unanswered question, especially about Jemmy's mother. Seán's mother was Margaret Kennedy, the “matron saint” who had died giving birth to Seán. Juggy had been Margaret's closest friend, and Jemmy often saw Juggy cry at the mention of the dead woman. “Tell me, Jemmy!” Seán would not let it go.

“Tell ye what?”

“Ach! Ye bloody well know! What I keep askin' ye! Are ye going t' England? Are we t'be friends no more?”

“I don't know where she is, Seán.” Jemmy felt his face flush as he conceded to the question. “I don't think she wants me with her. ‘Tis been two years.” He clambered to his feet, took a few paces, then picked up a small rock and began tossing it between his hands, shifting its weight from side to side, faster and faster. “Besides, she's probably already gone.” He threw the rock at the skull, missing it. Then he snatched another stone and took careful aim before letting it fly. It hit just above the eye sockets and bounced away. Moving to the bank, he flumped down and found more pebbles to throw. One after another, slowly and deliberately, he tossed them, knowing all the while that Seán was still standing, watching him, confused. “Once, twice, thrice. Once, twice, thrice.” Jemmy faintly counted his lofted shots. The small stones produced a hollow melody as they hit the ancient forehead then plopped into the shallow trickling stream and dark clay beyond. “Once, twice, thrice. Wants. Two eyes. Through ice. Eh?”

His friend was now sitting beside him. “Our codes.”

Jemmy raised a finger. “Wants
—”

“All be clear,” Seán interjected, then paused. “Don't guess it'll mean yer Da's not around.”

“Thank the gods.” Jemmy added his middle finger to the other. “Two eyes,” he said, pronouncing it like ‘twice', “'tis me warning yer half-wit head to look about.”

“Ach, sure.” Seán elbowed Jemmy.

“And through ice,” Jemmy exclaimed, raising three fingers. “We stand together. No matter the bastard.”

Seán got to his feet. “Had we been at the Boyne, t'would've been our signal. Through the thick of it!” He thrust three fingers into the glowing air, as if commanding his men up the grisly hill of that most celebrated of Irish battles.

“True,” said Jemmy with a smile. He returned to stoning the river. Much to his growing annoyance, and as much as he tried, he could not make the flight of the pebbles follow a consistent path. One would fall into the stream with a splash, then be washed clean and glide down the way. Another would veer to the left on its descent and land splat in the muck of the far shore, then slip from sight, swallowed in the ancient clay and silt. He became obsessed with the rock-casting, but it was futile. Only smaller and smaller pebbles remained, and they were increasingly unpredictable. As fate embraces chaos, order was not to be grasped, and the bitter issue about him leaving was still lingering, distastefully unresolved.

“So, what are ye goin' t'do?” Seán asked, as if on cue. He turned in a big circle, surveying the common green. “Ye can't rightly live out here. Anyway, Da said if ye want any more food ye'll have t' come back t' Purcell's.” He started peeling bark from the oak that swelled over them like a colossus. “Besides, out here isn't much hidden.”

“‘Tis a fine place t' hide from that bastard Richard,” Jemmy growled, standing and gathering his waistcoat. He warily watched two old men with a milk cow amble through the park, guiding the animal across a small rickety footbridge, then out through the north gate. Jemmy turned and walked the other way.

“Where ye going?” asked Seán, surprised.

“T' get breakfast. Ye not coming?”

Seán trotted to catch up.