The Valentine Legacy (Legacy 3)

Three-year-old Taylor said in a voice loud and clear, “My mama told me she was the best jockey in all the world. My grandpa said it was the truth. She said you were good, Papa, but you’re too big a man. She told me she hoped I didn’t grow as big as you.”

James groaned, pulled Jessie against him, and said, “I don’t stand a chance.”

She turned a glowing face to him. “Isn’t life wonderful, James?”

“It’s the best,” he said, and leaned down and kissed her. They heard cheering all around them. Taylor let out a yell that nearly felled his father.

“Dr. Hoolahan was right, James,” Jessie said. “Those are your mother’s lungs. They just get stronger by the year.”

Epilogue

MARCUS WYNDHAM, THE Earl of Chase, not only became a father to four children (all by the Duchess), but also became active in the House of Lords in the Melbourne government. In 1837, he was appointed an advisor to the new queen of England, Victoria. It is said she would have married him if she could have because he was so “wickedly fair of person and so wickedly wicked of tongue.” This was her last witty remark.

The Duchess, the Countess of Chase, became the most famous ditty writer of her time, although Queen Victoria is said to have complained that “some of the ditties hovered on the precipice of The Vulgar,” to which a journalist replied in an impertinent column, “Then tootle them not, your majesty, and leave them to your salty dogs.” In the English navy today, her famous Sailors’ Song is still one of the favorite drinking tunes.

In 1837, Anthony Godwyn Ruthven Wyndham, Viscount Radcliffe and eldest son of Marcus and the Duchess, married Cecilia Derwent Nightingale, eldest daughter of North and Caroline Nightingale, whose wild antics fascinated Anthony and terrified her parents. He called her his devilkin. Queen Victoria was persuaded by the Earl of Chase to be godmother to his grandson, Marcus James Bentford Wyndham, born in 1838. It is said that many busy fingers counted months until the birth of their child, which, fortunately, arrived only one week early.

Charles, second son of Marcus and the Duchess, married a Russian duchess—whose mother was English—and moved to St. Petersburg only to return with his wife to England after but one Russian winter. Charles later became the British ambassador to Russia, though he turned down the post twice before finally accepting it. He said that “even my dear wife’s fiery kisses can’t keep me warm enough in that bloody climate.” His wife, Marianna Shelley Petrovinka Wyndham, sang her mother-in-law’s ditties far and wide in a rich soprano voice and wrote two gothic novels in the 1860s.

North and Caroline Nightingale, Viscount and Viscountess Chilton, helped revitalize the tin-mining industry in northern Cornwall with the aid of Rafael and Victoria Carstairs. They brought five children into Cornwall, all of them hell raisers, their eldest daughter, Cecilia,

leading the way, their father said many times in near-despair. Their two younger blue-eyed daughters married twin-brother robber barons from New York and moved there in 1846. North and Caroline’s sons, Edmund and Alexander, both became vicars, strangely enough, after having sowed enough wild oats for a calvary battalion, their father said, shaking his head whenever he viewed his sons exhorting their flocks from behind their pulpits.

North walked on the moors with his hounds once a year just to remind himself how very sweet life was and how very warm it made him feel to hear his wife’s rich laughter upon his return. Owen Ffalkes married Miss Mary Patricia. His adopted son, Owen, became a famous violinist and composer and moved to Prague. His first sonata was dedicated to his mother, Alice, who had died birthing him. Mr. Ffalkes remained at Honeymead Manor until his fond wife happened to find him dead in a ditch, supposedly of too much drink, in the late fall of 1832. No one questioned her closely.

Caroline never ran out of laughter. Her two godly sons tried to populate Cornwall double-handedly, she was heard to say when her fourteenth grandchild was born, healthy and loud, another prospective hell raiser, North added, rubbing his hands together, seeing revenge in the future.

James and Jessie Wyndham, the American Wyndhams, lived a Proserpine arrangement—six months at Candlethorpe in Yorkshire and six months at Marathon in Baltimore. They brought three children into the world. Taylor, the eldest, was as horse-mad as his parents. In 1844, he married Marielle Elizabeth Wyndham, his first cousin, born sixteen months after he was, saying just after their wedding that “I’ve known her since I was one and a half years old. I might as well stay with her to see how she turns out.” Both of them turned out very well. Marielle became more American than English, though she continually mixed her idioms.

James and Jessie spoke rarely of Blackbeard’s treasure, but they did occasionally visit the Warfield house on Ocracoke in the summer. They rode horses bareback on the beach, Jessie’s streamers tangling wildly in the wind. Jessie published a treatise on the lost colony of Roanoke, but it wasn’t well received. She was promptly accused of having falsified Valentine’s diary, being a woman and thus unskilled in proper forgery methods. Wilhelmina Wyndham bullied her grandchildren until the day she passed on to her just reward, which all her relatives prayed was truly just. As for Alice Belmonde and Nelda, widow of Bramen Carlysle, Compton Fielding was right. Upon her husband’s death in 1824, Nelda and Alice moved to New York and became famous literary hostesses. Jessie passed down the Valentine swan necklace to her eldest daughter. It is still in the Wyndham family despite outlandish offers made by collectors.

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Spears and Badger remained with Marcus and the Duchess, becoming godparents many times to all the Wyndham offspring, both English and American. They spent at least a month every year in Baltimore with the American Wyndhams, Spears informing Marcus that “Mr. Badger and I know our duty. Indeed, we do enjoy ourselves in assisting James and Jessie to improve upon their child-rearing practices.” Marcus, never one to complain, nonetheless forewent writing any major speeches for the House of Lords until Spears had returned to provide him nominal assistance. It is said that Badger once cooked for President Andrew Jackson.

Sampson and Maggie also remained part of the Wyndham household. Maggie gave birth to Damon Arthur Lancelot Sampson in 1825. Damon became one of the most famous actors on the London stage in the entire nineteenth century, excelling in his roles of Othello, Hamlet, and Shylock. He was extraordinarily handsome, charming, and witty, but he never married. He always gave thanks to his beautiful mother who, he was fond of saying, “sacrificed her own acting career to the rigors of motherhood.” No one ever challenged this.

Wyndhams and Nightingales are everywhere. Perhaps one is a neighbor.

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