Zulu Hart
Dublin, 1 October 1859
I shall never set foot in a theatre again, vowed the tall, well- dressed occupant of the hansom cab as it drew up in front of No. 27 Connaught Square. Casting his eyes up to the warmly illuminated windows of the elegant townhouse, he drew a deep, determined breath. Ever since meeting his wife Louisa twenty years earlier, he had had a penchant for
actresses
. But a liaison was one thing, a bastard quite another. Fully resolved to keep the child’s existence a secret, he opened the cab door and stepped down to the pavement. ‘Wait here,’ he told the driver, perched high above the cab.
The shiny black door was opened by a liveried footman. ‘Good evening, sir. Miss Hart is expecting you. She’s upstairs in the drawing room.’
He handed the footman his Chesterfield overcoat, top hat and cane, and strode up the sweeping staircase to the first floor. He paused before a gilt mirror to straighten his white neck cloth. It was unfashionably broad and worn with a high collar. The latest style was for small bows and low collars, but he had never been one to follow trends, and the rest of his evening dress said as much, with its traditional black tails, white waistcoat with embroidered borders, black trousers and pumps. Though his boyish handsomeness was marred slightly by his receding hairline, he still cut a dashing figure in the mirror with his impressive moustache and whiskers. Not bad for forty, he thought, before continuing on to the drawing room.
‘Hello, darling,’ said a female voice as he entered. ‘Come and meet your son.’
She was standing in front of the fireplace, a broad smile on her radiant face, a tiny baby clutched in her arms. Her curly raven hair was piled high on her head, her full figure enclosed in a tight-fitting green velvet gown that matched her flashing eyes. She was even more beautiful than he remembered. ‘Hello, Emma,’ he responded, nodding at the baby. ‘Is he well?’
‘He is. And
he
has a name: George
Arthur,
named for you and the Iron Duke. For now, my surname will have to suffice.’
He walked over, kissed her cheek and peered down at his sleeping son. The boy’s features were regular, the hair glossy black, and the skin much lighter than his mother’s milk-coffee tone. ‘He’s perfect,’ he said. ‘But I can never acknowledge him.’
Emma’s smile faded.
‘Why ever not?
It’s not as though he’s your first bastard, nor I your first mistress.’
‘No. But I married your predecessor. And, as you well know, she doesn’t take kindly to rivals.’
‘Any rivals?’ she spat. ‘Or just those who are younger, more beautiful and more talented?’
‘Sarcasm doesn’t become you, Emma. You must realize I have no choice. Louisa is insanely jealous if I even so much as look at a pretty girl, and this would break her heart. Nor would Her Majesty regard it with any more favour.’
‘The queen has accepted the bastards you bred with your wife before you married her.
Why not this one?’
He sighed and walked towards the window overlooking the square, his hands clasped behind his back. ‘The queen has never even mentioned them. As far as she’s concerned, my wife and children do not exist, which is why I’d be a fool to reopen old wounds. An injudicious marriage is bad enough; but infidelity she would never forgive. You know what sticklers she and Albert are for moral propriety.’
‘Indeed,’ said Emma with contempt. ‘But that’s never discouraged you, has it? Are you sure there isn’t another reason? Like the colour of his skin?’
He turned sharply. ‘That has nothing to do with it. The boy’s no darker than our good Mr Disraeli. And don’t think I’m trying to shirk my responsibilities. As long as you keep quiet about his provenance, you’ll receive an annuity of three thousand pounds. But it will cease on his eighteenth birthday, by which time I’ll have arranged a commission for him in my old cavalry regiment. From then on he’s on his own. He’ll have to live on his army pay.’
‘And what if I don’t want him to become a soldier?’
‘How could you object? A more honourable profession does not exist.’
‘It’s not the nature of the profession I’m concerned with, George, but the obvious truth that not everyone is suited to war. Surely you know that as well as anyone.’
‘I’ he said indignantly. ‘What
exactly
are you getting at? I did my duty in the Crimea and only came home on a medical certificate.’
‘Of course, but …’
‘But
what?
She was about to mention the adverse reaction by the press to his early return, but thought better of it.
After a pause he continued, ‘I’ve told you my terms. If you renege on them, I’ll stop the annuity and
still
deny he’s my son. But I’m prepared to offer an additional inducement: if you allow him to enter the army and he achieves certain goals by a certain age, then he’ll receive from my solicitor a series of substantial payments.’
‘What goals?’
‘I have yet to decide. But all will be revealed on his eighteenth birthday.’
Looking down at her baby, she said in a low voice, ‘
So
that’s your plan: to blackmail your son into becoming a successful soldier? Why him? Why not
your
other sons?’
‘ Thus
far my elder sons have shown little aptitude for the military. I don’t know why. Maybe I’ve indulged them. But the truth is they’re far more interested in drinking and gambling than taking their profession seriously. In short, they lack ambition, like a lot of young men today. He won’t. Life in the army will toughen him up and give him something to work for.’
She snorted and shook her head. ‘I don’t think you’ve thought about this enough. George is the bastard son of a half-breed
actress
. He wouldn’t survive five minutes in the army.’
‘I never said it would be easy. That’s part of the challenge. But to make life simpler I suggest you tell him he’s of Maltese blood and that his father died when he was an infant.’
She shook her head. ‘No, I’m sorry. I can’t do that.’
He stared at her coldly for a while, nodded at the child in her arms and said, ‘You can and you will, for his sake if not your own. Your time on the stage is limited. Your beauty will fade. Then how will you provide for your son? I can do that, but my identity must remain a secret — even to him.’
She turned away to hide her tears. When she turned back, he’d gone.
Harrow School, Michaelmas Term 1873
‘Hart, you lazy bastard, where the devil are you?’ came a cry from outside the dormitory.
George flinched at the sound of his tormentor’s voice and continued buffing the large black shoe in his hand. He had been working on it for a good ten minutes, and the result was a shine so clear he could see his reflection in it. Yet he knew from experience that his fagmaster, Percy Sykes, would find fault with the smallest blemish.
‘Hart!’
The call was angry now. ‘You’ve got twenty seconds to produce my shoes. I’m counting.’
A last vigorous rub and George was done. He grabbed the shoe’s twin from the floor and hurtled out of the dormitory, along the corridor, up a flight of stairs and came to a halt in front of Sykes’s study. The door was open.
‘Twenty-two seconds,’ said Sykes, pocket-watch in hand. He was sitting in an armchair and, apart from his stockinged feet, was immaculately turned out in his Sunday best of top hat and tails.
‘Shame.
Shoes, please.’
George handed over the gleaming footwear.
‘Not bad, not bad at all,’ said Sykes, turning them over. ‘We’ll make a valet of you yet. But I can’t abide lateness.
Report to the gym after lunch for your punishment.’
George knew the gym meant another beating. He had had enough.
‘No.’
I said no. I was only two seconds late.’
Sykes stood up and approached George menacingly. He was tall for his seventeen years and stockily built. ‘You dare to say no to me?’
George said nothing, prompting Sykes to lower his face to within inches of his fag’s. ‘I’m going to teach you some manners, Hart. Forget the gym. Meet me in the long field at six - and don’t be late.’
George knew he had gone too far. The long field was the venue for fist-fights, or ‘affairs of honour’, as the boys chose to call them, the means by which most quarrels at Harrow were settled. George thought back to the two bouts he had already fought and won against boys his own age. Neither had been a pleasant experience. But the bigger and stronger Sykes was a very different proposition. His instinct was to decline and take his punishment in the gym. But where would it end? No, he decided, it was far better to stand up to Sykes and his kind in an open fight, even if it meant a pummelling.
‘I’ll be there,’ he said, with more confidence than he felt.
News of the fight spread rapidly, and a large crowd had gathered by the time George and his second, a pale youth called Watson, reached the long field at a few minutes to six. They pushed their way through the excited throng to find Sykes in the centre of the field, stripped to the waist and shadow-boxing with one of his cronies. The sixth-former acting as referee was also there.
Sykes raised his eyebrows at George’s arrival. ‘Didn’t think you’d show,’ he said with a sneer. ‘And you’ll soon wish you hadn’t.’
‘Enough!’ said the referee. ‘Time to let your fists do the talking. You both know the rules: three minutes a round, sixty seconds to recover from a knockdown and you fight until one or other of you has had enough.
Any questions?’
They both shook their heads.
‘Come together, then.’
George stripped off his shirt and handed it to Watson. He was much slighter than Sykes, causing the crowd to howl with laughter as the two fighters stepped up to the mark: one tall, white and muscular; the other dark and scrawny.
The referee dropped his hand.
‘Round one!’
Sykes came rushing forward, a straight right and a swinging left both narrowly failing to connect with his opponent’s face. George countered with a jab that caught Sykes flush on the chin and rocked his head back. The crowd roared its approval, delighted they would see a contest after all.
‘You’ll pay for that,’ said Sykes, spitting blood from a split lip.
But as the fight wore on it became clear that George’s superior technique was every bit a match for Sykes’s size .advantage. Each time the older boy tried to close and bring his strength to bear, George ducked and danced his way out of I rouble. He was like a matador with a bull, and by round five .1 wheezing Sykes was getting desperate. He ploughed forward .again and straight on to George’s right hook. The crack as fist connected with bone cartilage could be heard by latecomers fifty yards away. As Sykes staggered and fell, his nose streaming blood, George clutched his injured right hand.
The crowd was shocked into silence, as bewildered by the smaller boy’s extraordinary courage as they were by his lightning hands. They sensed, too, that he was badly hurt.
‘You all right, Hart?’ asked Watson.
‘No. I think I’ve broken a bone in my right hand, but for God’s sake don’t let on.’
Watson looked across at Sykes. He had been helped into a sitting position by his second, who was sponging his face. ‘I don’t think he’ll make it. But if he does, you have to concede. You can’t fight with one hand.’
‘
I won’t concede.’
With only seconds of his
minute’s
grace remaining, Sykes stumbled forward to the mark, his face groggy and his arms hanging limply by his sides.
‘All right to go on?’ asked the referee.
Sykes
nodded,
fury in his eyes.
George continued as before, keeping his opponent at bay with well-aimed jabs. His fluid movement over the ground gave little away to the crowd, but it quickly became apparent to Sykes that he was reluctant to land any blows with his previously fearsome right hand. This knowledge brought a smile to Sykes’s battered lips. He feinted with his right hand and landed a crunching left hook on George’s undefended right ear, stunning his opponent but not felling him.