From Fitzroy's Private Diary (Extract 70)
Little Hope has asked me, on more than one occasion, what I was like at her age. She is ten at present. I tend to reply ‘shorter’ or ‘no moustache’ in a curt and severe tone. A tone that anyone other than her mother and her would take as a signal to finish the conversation. Under those circumstances Alice would ask what was upsetting me and pester me until she had an answer. Hope’s strategy is much more effective: she giggles.
She is a sweet girl. Perhaps a little young for her age, but despite attending the local village school she tends to spend most of her time among adults. I suppose we treat her as younger than she is. I doubt there is anyone in the White Orchards that does not dote on her. You would think this would make her a spoilt child, but she remains eager to please and delightfully friendly.
At her age, I was in deep grief from my mother’s death, who fell from a bolting horse. She was a fine horsewoman, but my father had decided to sell her favourite mare before it got too old and was no longer worth money. To be scrupulously fair, he had arranged another mare to replace hers. However, it was delayed coming to the stable and my mother took out one of my father’s stallions, despite the warning of the grooms. I think, in the normal way of things, this might have been without issue, if it have not been for a new rabbit warren appearing in the lower fields, and that no one had noticed the stallion, aptly named Nightmare, had an abscess in his mouth, making him more than usually wild.
My mother’s demise was my first encounter with death, and it make me realise the impermanence of joy. I learned, on a beautiful summer afternoon, that one’s world can be torn asunder in a single moment.
As a grown man, I rarely save anything for a special occasion. I am stalked by death in my work, and I know it as a merciless foe. If there is happiness or pleasure to be had then, my duty allowing, I take it when it is offered. I seek to do no harm, other than to my enemies, but I am impervious to petty laws and common moral standards.
As an Agent of the Crown, I must frequently risk my life, and so I attempt to make the most of the time I am alive. As a boy, I hoped to meet my mother again in heaven. As a man, if heaven exists, especially after all I have done, I doubt strongly that I will be admitted. Apart from not seeing my mother, I don’t especially mind. It sounds like a rather boring sort of place and it seems unlikely there would be decent brandy available.
I am not amoral, as Bertram has more than once accused me of being. I have my own code, and I put my duty to the Crown above all. I chose to accept my role, when it was offered, as I believe in the British way of life and that, in helping to preserve this, I am giving my fellow humans the best shot at a decent life. Except for those I am required to kill, of course. I can’t claim to be helping those fellows out, but then, their own actions will have put them in my sights.
When I joined the Service, I was little more than a boy and extremely naïve in an idealistic sort of way. My outlook has been tempered by my experience. As a boy I knew some men were bad, like my father. However, I still believed that most people, given a fair chance, would turn out to be of good character. I have now changed that belief to some people. I continue to believe in the greater good, but I am now more willing to do ever darker deeds to preserve it.
As a boy, I never imagined I would kill anyone, unless there was another war in Africa, and I was forced into the army. I have always enjoyed the company of animals and have a degree of empathy with them. This has not changed - except perhaps I now openly acknowledge some animals are better companions than people. It is rare to meet an animal that could be termed malicious. As far as I am aware, only three creatures kill for sport - polar bears, leopards and, most commonly, man.
I am indeed far different from the boy that learned languages at his mother’s knee, who went on long rambles with only the company of the kitchen cat, who learned to move with stealth and hide in hedgerows to observe the woodland creatures, and who learned what to bring back to the cook to add to our stores - sloes for sloe gin, brambles for jam, edible mushrooms for that extra meaty stew. All this was done in return for cook not telling my father that I was not upstairs studying my books.
For those times when I was not with my mother, I always wanted to be outside and away from my father, his home, and the daily tiresome rituals of polite society that smothered the place. I was a wild, solitary creature, most at home in the rambling forest next to our estate. Nature gave me hope, as well as beauty. I was always content with my own company. Animals improved my mood, but people rarely did. That aspect of my personality has not changed. I have also become increasingly adept at duplicity. Bribing the cook’s silence was perhaps the first sign of this as one of my innate talents.
I do not think I will tell Hope much about my boyhood. At boarding school, to which I was sent when my mother died, I learned quickly how to manipulate others and bend them to my will. I studied how to find their weak points, and at that time, I chose to help and support others in return for their thanks and favour. Now I use that ability to extort and control. I could lie, but as Alice is not sending Hope to boarding school, I do not want to tell her how much fun it was (although, if mine had been next to a girls’ school, I might have a great deal more fun).
I shall, therefore, continue to give short and taciturn answers when Hope enquires about my own childhood. I shall present grumpiness and an ill-mannered face, until her giggles bring me back to the playful self that I am around her. Then I shall pounce on her like a tiger, growling and tickling her until she screams with laughter so loud my ears hurt and Jack hides under a chair.