Page 1 of A Gathering Storm

FromThe Collected Writings of Sir Edward Fitzwilliam, volume I

On the twenty-fourth day of June, in the year 1852, I was visited by my twin brother’s spirit.

I was a passenger on a steamship, theArchimedes, sailing from Dublin to Anglesey, and it was close to midnight. The captain had told us they expected an electrical storm that night and that we should stay in our cabins, but I was most keen to witness the phenomenon of a great storm at sea, and so I ventured onto the deck despite his warnings.

It was like no other storm I had ever experienced. I couldsensethe electricity that saturated the atmosphere before a single bolt of lightning struck. Indeed, the very air seemed to hum with it, and the distinctive pungent odour of ozone gas—so named by Professor Schönbein, whose experiments into the electrolysis of water were of particular interest to me at that time—was all around me. When I glanced up at the sky, there was a faint, luminous glow over the brim of my hat, eerie and bluish white, and even though I knew it was produced by electromagnetism, it was no less beautiful or miraculous for that. I stared at that glow for long minutes, even discerning tiny sparks dancing there.

And then the lightning came. Mighty enough to tear the very heavens in two, it seemed, and I cried out in alarm, muttering some half-remembered prayer from my childhood as I clutched at the side of theArchimedes. Again the lightning struck, and again, each bolt seeming to disappear into the black depths of the churning sea. I admit, I was frightened then, and wished I had heeded the captain’s words. But just as I was about to run below deck, a voice spoke to me, a voice as dear to me as my own. My brother, George. My twin.

“Ward,” he said. “Ward. Can you hear me?”

I whirled on the spot, heart pounding, searching the empty deck for him. I called his name, over and over, and cried out, “I can’t see you! Where are you?”

My rational mind supplied a rational answer: George was in Burma. His regiment had recently served at the Siege of Rangoon. He could not possibly be on a steamer to Anglesey with me, and yet I’d heard his voice!

“Everything will be all right, Ward,” George said. “All will be well.”

That was all he said. A moment later, a physical pain wrenched through my body, worse than anything I’d ever felt, even in the worst days of my long childhood sickness. I cannot do justice to that pain in mere words. It was as though one of those great lightning bolts had struck my very heart and sundered it in two. It sent me to my knees. I fell heavily to the wet wooden deck, crying out my brother’s name.

I felt George’s absence—the moment he was gone—much as I’d felt his presence. It was negative to positive, opposite and equal, an emptiness to match and cancel out his sudden, shocking appearance. He was dead. I knew it—felt it—with a terrible finality. And though I called his name, over and over, weeping, I knew he would not return.

I dragged myself to my feet and began to search the deck of theArchimedes, hoping to find some lingering sign of George’s fleeting visit, but it was not until I finally raised my eyes from the deck, beaten, that I saw it. Quivering at the very top of the ship’s mast: a strange and luminous violet-blue light, like a huge flame atop some monstrous candle. Ethereal and otherworldly.

I knew what this was, had read reports of thesespirit candles, as the Welsh sailors called them. OrSt. Elmo’s fire, as I knew it.

And as I stared, awestruck, I was filled with sudden certainty: that it was all connected somehow. The electric storm, the sea, the ozone, my bond with George. Some or all of these elements had combined to defy the laws of man as I knew them and bring my twin to me in the terrible moment of his death.

It was in that instant that my life’s work was conceived.

2nd April 1853

Roscarrock House, Porthkennack

The new mare was as fine a horse as Nick had ever seen. Proud and lovely with her dapple-grey coat, ivory mane, and delicate, high-stepping legs.

“What do you think of her?” old Godfrey asked, without looking at Nick. He leaned over the paddock fence, his eyes on the mare, but Nick could hear a betraying note of eagerness in his tone. “Do you think Isabella will like her?”

Nick, who’d been chewing on a stalk of grass, spat out a stray seed and said, “Those are two different questions.”

Godfrey gave an impatient sigh and turned his head. At seventy-eight he was still hale, a big man with a shock of silver hair. There was a slight stoop to those broad shoulders these days, and the big hands gripping the top of the fence were spotted with pale brown marks, but he was as active as he’d always been. Still rode every day.

“Answer them separately then,” Godfrey demanded.

Nick watched the mare canter round the field, in no hurry to respond. He knew that Godfrey hated that Nick didn’t rush to do his bidding like everyone else. In a way though, Godfrey liked that about it him too. Or, at least, he respected it.

At last Nick looked at Godfrey and gave his verdict. “It’s rare to find agrasnias fine as this one.”

A brief flicker of distaste crossed Godfrey’s face at Nick’s use of the Romany word, but his satisfaction at Nick’s approval soon chased it away.

“It is,” he agreed. He respected Nick’s opinion on horses more than anyone else’s. Said that Nick had an instinct for them. Sometimes he said he should have left Nick in the stables, working with the horses, instead of educating him to take on the elevated position of Godfrey’s steward. But that was usually only when he was irritated with Nick.

“I’m not certain, though,” Nick continued, calmly, “that she’s the right animal for Miss Isabella.”

“Why ever not?” Godfrey demanded, his grin falling away.

Nick smiled, watching the mare as she tossed her head. “Just look at her. She’s a handful.”

“Isabella is a fine horsewoman,” Godfrey snapped. “She has a wonderful seat—better than her brother.”