North Yorkshire, England
THE DAY OF LORD SIMON’S wedding to Sarah Hargrove brought with it unseasonable warmth, sunshine, and two uninvited guests.
The presence of the two men was all the more notable due to the small size of the affair. Simon’s own father had died more than forty years ago, and his mother thirty. Simon himself was fifty-five years of age. The two men knew it. His bride did not.
Simon still looked like a man in his thirties—he checked, quite obsessively, every time he passed a mirror—but he didn’t feel like it. His bones ached, for one thing, and he dreamt of lost teeth and hair. Any cough or sneeze plunged him into a secret terror which he would disguise as melancholy or ennui to the servants or whomever else he had to deal with. He’d taken to having portraits done of himself every time he imagined his age was beginning to catch up with him, so he could soothe his fears by comparing them. He earned a bit of a reputation for vanity as a result.
That hardly prevented him from receiving far more than the usual amount of attention a wealthy, unmarried lord of his (apparent) age could expect in London society. And he enjoyed it, perhaps too much. Simon tended to fall in and out of love (and lust) easily, and there had been a few incidents over the decades, the most serious of which involved one of his mother’s lady’s maids. Simon would have married her, but his mother forbade it. He received a letter six months later, informing him of his son’s birth.
The letter was from the professor.
If you do not make better use of your time on Earth, you may well find yourself short of it.
Simon made arrangements to provide handsomely for the boy and his mother—he wasn’t a monster, after all. But he burned the letter. And decided to study medicine, after that. Just in case.
Every now and again, he would receive a letter from the professor—sometimes writing as Abraham Locke, other times as Augustin Langley, and still other times as Armin Lenaurd—curiously, the initials were always the same. The letters were always short, and always useful, if cryptic.
You might consider an appointment with—
Your presence would be most welcome at—
An appointment led to a role in the East India Company, and as such, an opportunity to reestablish his family’s fortune. His presence at a ball nearly a year ago resulted in his introduction to Miss Hargrove—Sarah—whom he adored more than his own life.
But he hadn’t seen the professor in person, not since the day he walked out of St. Thomas’, to the astonishment of the physicians and surgeons and nurses who attended him. The professor was standing outside the gate, past the green, in front of a waiting carriage. Next to him stood the African, whose name Simon could never remember.
Simon had thought it had been a dream. A nightmare. The professor informed him of the truth, and the hair rose on the back of his neck at hearing his voice again.
“Simon Shaw,” the professor said to him, “you owe James, here, your life.”
Simon didn’t hesitate. He bowed to James immediately. “I am forever in your debt, sir. And I will remain exceedingly grateful all my life.”
The professor smiled at that. “I expect that you will. And you can expect to hear from me again, about that debt.”
Simon had got into that carriage forty-three years ago and had seen neither man since. Not until today.
The ceremony began quite ordinarily; Sarah, a vision in her white muslin dress, with tiny white flowers braided into her blond hair, seemed blissfully happy both before the wedding, and during. She beamed as the vicar opened the Book of Common Prayer and began to recite his lines.
Simon let the words drift past him as he lingered on Sarah’s face. She was exquisite, but more impressively, she was good. A good person, modest and charitable. He knew he didn’t deserve her.
“Secondly, it was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication—”
One of Sarah’s sisters giggled and was quickly hushed by her mother.
The vicar cleared his throat. “That such persons as have not the gift of continency might marry, and keep themselves undefiled members of Christ’s body.
“Thirdly, it was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity. Into which holy estate these two persons present come now to be joined. Therefore if any man can shew any just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace.”
That was the moment, naturally, in which James and the professor entered the chapel, one after the other.
The shock alone might’ve killed Simon. The heads of their dozen guests turned to the door. There were murmurs, but the vicar registered his surprise with a double blink, before gamely continuing to recite:
“I require and charge you both, as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgement when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined together in Matrimony, ye do now confess it.”
Simon ought to have looked at Sarah, then. That was what he wanted to do. But he glanced at the professor and James instead. Their faces remained impassive.
Only when he realised that they weren’t there to stop the marriage, apparently, did he exhale and dare to look at his bride.
Ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgement when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined together in Matrimony, ye do now confess it.
What would she do, if he confessed the secrets of his heart? The secrets of his life? She thought him twenty years younger, and Simon had been as careful as he could to conceal his true age, but someone, someday, would surely notice, wouldn’t they? What would she think then? What would she do?
The vicar was speaking to Simon directly, now. “Wilt thou have this Woman to thy wedded Wife, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honour, and keep her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?”
Simon looked at Sarah, only Sarah, as he spoke the words, “I will.”
It was Sarah’s turn, then, and her bouquet of lilies trembled a bit as her bare shoulders shook—from nerves, or an attempt not to cry—as the vicar asked her the same question, and she gave the same answer.
“Who giveth this Woman to be married to this Man?”
Sarah’s father joyfully performed his role, and Simon took the opportunity to glance, again, at James and the professor, still sitting in the back pew of the elaborate chapel.
Why were they there? What did they want?
The vicar cleared his throat, bringing Simon back into the moment. He exhaled slowly, before saying, “I, Simon Henry Shaw, take thee, Sarah Elizabeth Hargrove, to my wedded Wife, to have and to hold from this day forward—”
For how much longer, though?
“For better, for worse—”
What if they were worse?
“For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health—”
Sickness. Simon had to force himself not to let his eyes stray from Sarah’s.
“To love and to cherish, till death us do part—”
“According to God’s holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth.”
Simon was surely sweating through his waistcoat by the time he was finished. He relaxed only slightly as Sarah repeated her vows, taking his right hand with hers.
The words seemed to come so easily for her; her smile never wavered, her voice never faltered. What on God’s Earth did she see in him?
The vicar took the ring from its resting place and handed it to Simon, who took Sarah’s left hand in his, and placed the ring on her finger.
“With this Ring I thee wed, with my Body I thee worship, and with all my worldly Goods I thee endow: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”
“Amen,” everyone said in response, as the vicar directed Simon and Sarah to kneel.
“Let us pray,” he said.
Simon’s relief was overwhelming. The prayers went on for years; Simon’s knees ached, but surely that was normal, wasn’t it? He could feel the tiled floor through his breeches.
The next words that issued from the vicar’s lips recaptured his attention: “God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, bless, preserve, and keep you; the Lord mercifully with his favour look upon you; and so fill you with all spiritual benediction and grace, that ye may so live together in this life, that in the world to come ye may have life everlasting. Amen.”
Life everlasting.
James and the professor both looked the same, exactly the same, as they had decades ago, and Simon was quite sure they were not young men then, either.
What was their secret?
After the ceremony, and the prayers, and the signing of the register, congratulations were exchanged and all of the assembled guests began filing out of the chapel and back toward the manor for the wedding breakfast. All save two.
On his way out, Simon managed to manoeuvre his way toward the men.
“Congratulations,” the professor said to him. “I come bearing gifts.”
Simon swallowed hard. “What is it?” he asked with dread.
“Lord Simon!” Sarah’s mother approached, and gave the professor and James an appraising look. “I would be so honoured if you would introduce us?”
“Certainly,” Simon said, a frozen smile on his lips. “Professor, may I introduce you to Mrs. Hargrove.”
Mrs. Hargrove’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “Professor . . .”
“Lenaurd,” he lied.
“How exotic!” she said. “And is this your . . .”
“This extraordinary gentleman is James,” Simon added quickly, because that was the only name he’d known the man by, and such an introduction was sure to be less offensive than whatever Mrs. Hargrove was about to utter.
“Mr. James,” Mrs. Hargrove said. “How is it that you’ve come to know our Lord Simon?”
“We are colleagues.”
“Oh! You work for the Company as well?”
“Not at all,” the professor said. Simon took that opportunity to add, “The East India Company brings together many distinguished gentlemen from all over the world. I am incredibly fortunate to have made the acquaintance of men of their caliber.”
That seemed to satisfy Mrs. Hargrove, for the moment. “Well, I very much look forward to hearing all about your adventures abroad, Professor Lenaurd and Mr. James. I expect you’ll be joining us for the breakfast?”
“Unfortunately not,” the professor said. “We have some business nearby that we must attend to, but we wanted to offer our congratulations in person.” The professor said to Simon, “I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again soon.”
The men departed without another word, before Simon could ask them when he would be seeing them, and why, and how they looked the way they looked whilst others aged and faded and died.
He tried not to think about them as he sat next to his wife, in the home they now shared, surrounded by her family. He tried not to think about them for the rest of that day and night. He was only successful that night.
Simon awoke the following morning feeling like a new man, truly. His worrying had been for naught. He was in perfect health. He had a beautiful new wife. He was the most fortunate man alive.
He dressed for his morning ride and had the groom lead his favourite horse from the stable, a grey mare named Shadow. The horse reared after seeing a lady’s hat tossed into the wind, and she threw Simon from the saddle.
The fall broke his neck. He had eighteen minutes to live.
James and the professor arrived in five.