Elisabeth Fairchild by Captian Cupid Page B

friend, rode the three miles from Appleby to Dufton, headed for the fells at last, for a sight Miss Foster had mentioned, known as the High Cup.
    Dufton was a pleasant, white cottage village surrounded by orchards, grazing cattle and a church-topped knoll. Squat sandstone edifices edged a tree-lined green dominated by a post-and-ball topped watering trough where he stopped the gray. Latin inscribed the stones, a pun, poorly worded.
    Leading the gray to the local livery, he took rucksack in hand and walked eastward as the stable lad pointed, uphill to Horthwaite, then to Peeping Hill. Behind him the Eden valley grew smaller. Above him clouds threw shadow over the sun. An eagle keened.
    This march into spaces uninhabited, gorse-draped foothills swallowing him, swallowing sound, brought a sense of peace unlike even that he had found at Ullswater. Here was a grimmer, more sterile beauty, fewer signs of life, in the distance the jagged knife’s edge of the fells. Here, one might think uninterrupted, or not think at all, only climb, one foot after the other, higher and higher.
    Had he ever known Val to be sober, truly sober? Was the child his?  And Penny Foster? Was she the slut Val claimed? He could not bring himself to think so. All Alexander knew was that he wanted to see her again, to speak to her, to hold her in his arms.
    Then what? Were his intentions honorable? What sort of relationship was the son of a Viscount and a young woman who had born a child out of wedlock destined to be?
    He stopped often to look back.
    Out of the wide green ribbon of the river the rippled fabric of the Pennines rose abruptly, a line of steep, gorse covered foothills.
    How did one open the eyes of others when blind oneself?
    Below him, in a cleft, four white-faced sheep bleated. Herdiwicks, the area was known for them.
    The past unfolded in his memory again, the white faces of the young men below, as one of them dropped to his knees, wine red staining the lapel of his uniform. Four French Guard surprised, no more than boys, and yet they were the enemy.
    He had been careful with his aim, careful to make every shot count. He would not have them suffer. They looked up at the crack of that first shot, startled, easy targets, squinting against the sun. The second man fell before they reacted to the danger. The youth crouched to shoot wildly. He winged a nearby boulder.
    The older man ran.
    His own shot did not go wide. The youth looked down, bewildered, fingering the bloody spot, unwilling to believe he was done for despite his show of courage. He fell face down, pistol cradled in his arm.
    Alexander watched the old man who ran while he reloaded, the barrel hot in his hands as he thrust the wad home. He considered letting the coward live, but then the carbine was tight against his shoulder. His orders were clear. The enemy must be stopped--halted in mid stride.
    Lambs to the slaughter.
    Cupid. The men had dubbed him Cupid thereafter.
    “How did you manage it?” he was asked as the bodies were examined. “Clean shots, all of them, right through the heart.”
    Awe in Val’s voice. Gleeful admiration.
    How had he managed to do it?   Time and again? No glee. No pride did he take in the accomplishment, only a growing weight of sadness, of personal accountability for the taking of lives.
    I would not let them suffer,” the voice inside his head tried to justify his actions. I could not.
    Never again,  God, he  thought. Never again will I pick up a gun to slay my fellow man. This thing I do most solemnly  and reverently vow.
    A distant rattle of bells and the sheep below him ran, dirty white cotton against the rusted green of the hillside. He turned his face to the peaks again with the feeling that here, so close to heaven, he was heard. He must climb higher, though, must mount what was known as the Beacon to reach the High Cup, the stable lad had said.
    Like the empty feeling that came with his memories the cup opened up before him, a bowl shaped