Sons of Fortune

by Malcolm Macdonald

Caspar turned on his heels and ostentatiously walked indoors; Boy hesitated and then followed.

  John, of course, was stunned—and then angry. The anger was uppermost in his voice as he apologized to Blenkinsop and strode into the house after his two uncouth sons. Nora went to show Sir Charles and his wife the house and their rooms; Winifred—perforce—played hostess to Blenkinsop.

  Caspar and Boy had gone straight into the gun room, whose door opened below the grand stair. Caspar stood in the open door, waiting for his father. John strode into the room and shut the door behind him.

  “How dare you!” he said to Caspar.

  “That person is not welcome here, sir,” Caspar answered.

  “Have a care, young man. Have great care. That person is to be your brother-in-law.”

  “No!” Boy called out.

  “I’ll hang for him first,” Caspar said evenly.

  John looked in astonishment at Boy. “You’ve surely never even met him,” he said.

  Caspar, too, rounded on Boy. “Yes. You stay out of it. What happened was between Blenkinsop and me.”

  John turned back to Caspar. “So—you obviously do know him.”

  “Very well indeed, Father. As a sodomite. As a liar. As a coward. As a cheat. As a man capable of overlooking debts of honour. Yes, I know him.”

  John was now white with rage. “Those, sir, are monstrous slanders on a man who is not here to challenge…”

  Caspar was already walking to the door.

  “Stay when I’m talking!” John thundered.

  “I’ll fetch him here,” Caspar said, delighted he could remain so cool and firm. It was a long time since he and his father had crossed swords so openly. He had always lived in dread of it; so far it was more exhilarating than frightening.

  “You will do no such thing,” John commanded. “I will not have a guest of mine exposed to such insults.”

  “Are you saying, sir, that you do not believe me? Do you accuse me of saying these things without cause?” Caspar was very firm.

  John saw where he had allowed himself to be manoeuvred. He could either call his son a liar or he could allow a guest of his to be blackguarded under his own roof. He appealed to Boy. “What do you know of this?”

  Caspar levelled a trembling finger at his brother but said nothing. Boy shifted uneasily. “It is for Caspar to say, sir.”

  “But you agree with him?”

  Boy did not flinch. “I would add to his list, sir. As, indeed, could he.”

  John faced the two of them. “Now, see here. Mr. Blenkinsop is a guest of mine. I cannot entertain any accusation against him while he is under my roof…”

  “I’ll throw him out, gladly,” Caspar said. “Then you can listen freely!”

  “Caspar!” Boy said.

  “It’s a pity you’re not as young as your behaviour suggests,” John said. “I’d send you to your room for two days. As I was saying—Mr. Blenkinsop is my guest, and while he is under my roof I must ask you to withdraw your accusations against him, whether or not they have any foundation.”

  He looked expectantly at them both.

  “I will agree,” Boy said, “with the greatest reluctance and on condition there is no question of his marrying any of ours—Winifred, I suppose you mean?”

  “This is still my house. I make the conditions here.” He turned to Caspar.

  “What is the alternative?” Caspar asked.

  John had to think. In his mind there had been no provision for an alternative. “You will be sent alone to Thorpe,” he said. “And spend Christmas there.”

  “I accept,” Caspar said instantly and left the room.

  “But wait!” John called after him—fruitlessly. He turned back to Boy. “I asked the general especially for his sake. Is it really so bad? I can’t think how you appear to know Mr. Blenkinsop so well.”

  “We don’t know him since he left Fiennes.”

  John frowned. “Fiennes? But he was at Uppingham. I have his father’s word for that. His father is a close friend of mine, I may add.”

  Boy turned and casually began to finger the chain that held all the guns padlocked. “I will pick my words with care, Father. I think it very likely that Blenkinsop completed his schooling at Uppingham; for it certainly was not complete when…er…circumstances arose that made it impossible for him to return to Fiennes in the spring of eighteen fifty-five.”

  “Fifty…but that was nearly eight years ago! You must have been…”

  “And you see how it still rankles! With both of us. I think it would be best if you put it to Blenkinsop that he should become unwell—or be called home on urgent family business.”

  “I will not!”

  “I’m sure you will find him accustomed to complying with requests for his discreet disappearance—or non-appearance.”

  “I’ll do no such thing! He is my guest.”

  Boy snapped the chain taut with a vicious tug. He turned to face John. “Then I must tell you, sir, that unless you do, I will not sit at table with him and I shall tell my mother and sister our reasons and, ladies though they are, they will find it hard to be civil to him.”

  John thought back over the list Caspar had recited. Sodomite…cheat…liar. Was it wise to dig? His sons obviously felt very deeply about it. Nevertheless he was master of this house.

  At that moment Caspar came back in, grinning from ear to ear. “Panic over,” he said.

  Neither of them could even guess what he meant.

  “Blenkinsop didn’t recognize me, of course. But I asked him…a certain question, and he said, ‘Good God! That Stevenson!’ and remembered an aunt he was supposed to meet off a boat from Switzerland.”

  “Switzerland?” John asked, disoriented. “Boat?”

  “Remembered he’d forgotten to sow next year’s radishes. I don’t know. Anyway, he’s round in the stable yard hopping around in a frenzy while they get the tumbrel harnessed again.”

  John started toward the door. “I must go and see him.”

  But Boy got there first. “And say what, pater? He’s bound to write. Let that seal it, eh?”

  John thought a long while. The tension became almost unendurable, but at last he turned away from the door and began to pace the room, still in silence. On his third traverse he halted at the window and looked out at the white world. Boy was sure his father was thinking of that marvellous snowbound Christmas here, sixteen years ago, when Abigail was born and their mother had nearly died; then, when she came back from the gates of death, all the children and their father had gone racing down the hill on a toboggan Uncle Walter had made. Boy, too, longed for the return of the happy, innocent family they had known then; he was sure his father was thinking the same at that moment. Caspar was also certain his father was thinking of a happy, obedient little family—not this one, but the one Mary Coen had told him of, the one with that Charity woman. They would still be young, obedient, and adoring; the guvnor would like that.

  In fact, John was thinking of neither of these things. He was coming to terms with his astonishment at the degree of opposition his sons had found it possible to mount and maintain—especially Caspar. He knew he ought to squash it very firmly, and at once. But could he—when Caspar had shown himself quite willing to go and spend a lonely Christmas in Thorpe? Besides, there were obligations too, to the general and to the Sherringham girl.

  “Listen,” he said, turning at last from the window. He even managed a smile as he went toward them and put his arms around their shoulders. “We’ll hold this in abeyance until after Christmas. You”—he squeezed Caspar—“know why the general’s here. And you”—he squeezed Boy—“know why the Sherringham girl is here. So go to it, both. And go to it well. If well enough, perhaps we may even ignore this deplorable incident.”

  Boy basked in this return of goodwill. Caspar wondered how long
it had been since that particular hand and arm had caressed that other woman.

  “Perhaps,” Caspar said to Nora when he explained it to her later, “it was as well we were arguing over what proved to be an empty casket. At least he knows how determined I will be. And Boy. Boy surprised me.”

  “Boy will surprise you all one day,” Nora said with great conviction.

  “He obviously hasn’t surprised Linny Sherringham yet.”

  “Have you?” Nora did not expect an answer. “Would you really have gone to Thorpe on your own?” she went on.

  “No.” Caspar was very matter-of-fact. “I would have left home for good.”

  “You and your five hundred pounds!”

  “Five hundred and thirty-two.”

  “Where?”

  “America, probably. Make something out of their war. I met an American on the boat a few years ago. He said you could make a fortune in guns over there.”

  “This Blenkinsop thing meant as much as that to you?”

  Caspar did not like her implication that it was a trivial affair. “Matter of principle,” he said gruffly.

  She smiled fondly at him. “Your father imagines Young John is the one in his image. But really it’s you. If you were prepared to cut yourself out of the family rather than eat at the same table as Mr. Blenkinsop, perhaps yon can understand why he will not easily yield up the firm to anyone but Young John. I mean—his stubbornness, perhaps you can understand that.”

  Caspar, seeing exactly what she meant, nodded gloomily. He turned to leave.

  “Going to America might not be such a bad thing at that,” Nora mused. “It’s a big enough and shocking enough thing to do—enough to move that mountain of stubbornness.”

  Caspar, now on his way out by the door, paused. “If I went, I’d go for good,” he said. “No games.”

  ***

  Boy and Caroline Sherringham were allowed more licence at this time than either had enjoyed before or would be allowed again, whether or not they became engaged. They could even wander alone into the drawing room together, provided the door was left open and provided it was not too long before the notes of the piano began their tinkling reassurance to the straining ears in nearby rooms.

  Caroline proved adept at producing Chopin-like melodies with hands that had a life of their own; the rest of her could then engage in the most animated conversation about anything under the sun and moon. Of course, there was never the slightest question of their really being alone together for more than a few minutes.

  After Christmas dinner, Boy left his father with Caspar and the general and went to turn the pages of Caroline’s music. The drawing room being occupied by Nora and the aunt, with Lady Redvers and Winifred being momentarily expected, Caroline decided she would like to try some harpsichord pieces. The pianoforte was in the drawing room, the harpsichord in the adjoining library. And since the instrument had less range of expression than the piano, it was even easier to leave her hands to their own devices on the keyboard.

  “You may sit beside me, Mr. Stevenson,” she said. “This seat is quite wide.”

  He obeyed, uneasy that he could not do so without pressing his hipbone to hers—or was it to her stays? Or the hoops or whatnots of her ballooning dress? He felt weak at the proximity of her. Girls were so different. Frightening. A girl in all her silks, gleaming and dainty, with such soft skin, so porcelain white, was so frighteningly alien. He tried to move his hip away from hers, blushing to think that she might imagine he welcomed the pleasure.

  His success in putting half an inch between them was short-lived; she merely spread herself more and left him with half a buttock uncomfortably lifted onto the raised wooden edge of the bench.

  “You could try this left-hand part,” she said. “It’s very easy. No—wait! I’ll get into C, and then you can do it in C, G, and F. The same notes in each.”

  With speed and ease she modulated the key down to C major. Then Boy took over her left-hand part.

  “Now F…now…back to C!” she said. “You see! Easy—I’ll call them out.”

  In the drawing room, Miss Lascelles, the aunt, smiled to herself.

  The new left hand on the harpsichord was unmistakably heavy and male.

  “Can you tell fortunes?” Linny asked, holding the palm of her free hand upright.

  “No,” Boy said. “Surely it’s all superstition.” His right hand stayed resolutely clenched on his thigh.

  “Here,” she said. “I can.” And she grabbed his free hand and spread it. “F,” she said. “G. Good! I see a life full of adventure and acts of great daring. C again.”

  “I trust not!” Boy said uncomfortably. “I was rather hoping for a quiet life. And a good one, of course.”

  “A man should be daring. G,” she said. “C.”

  “He can be morally daring. Spiritually daring, too. Ouch—sorry!” He had got into B natural instead of C.

  Outside Nora and the aunt avoided each other’s eyes.

  “Not with shoulders as big as yours,” she said. “Can you change C-F-A?”

  “I’ll try. What have my shoulders to do with it, Miss Sherringham? That wasn’t half bad, was it!”

  “Then back A-F-D. You, dear Mr. Stevenson, are obviously…don’t take your hand away…obviously designed for action and acts of daring. Like your father. And your hand says it, too. F. See here…the strength and depth of that line? The Duke of Wellington had a line like that, you know. F sharp to A sharp. Now down to G—and that puts us in a minor key, remember. I’m a great believer in all the things our hands can tell us.” She stroked the palm of his hand with her nails. “Aren’t you?”

  “There are,” he said in a warm and eager voice, “forms of belief that are more important.”

  ***

  “Well,” the general said, “it was on the fifth of April, eighteen forty-two, you worn ’em?”

  “Sir?” Caspar asked.

  “You born then?”

  “No, sir. A year later.”

  “Goo’ go’. Strorn’ry. Well, the Khyberees had the pass blocked. Stones…mud…bushes…never saw a hike, mnhmn tjah. Hort?” He looked expectantly at Caspar.

  “The port is with you, my boy,” John said.

  “Oh—sorry!” Caspar wondered how long this nightmare could go on. It went on:

  “Ha ha soldiers. British hool-uhhuna man great discipline. Haddthoro…honour myself to lead one party. Up scarlahinahoul. ’N turls, tell you. Got furla win shootin all round. Scattered pfff!” For some reason he then put a pineapple in the centre of the table. “General Pollock!” he said. He lifted the cloth and stood two empty wine bottles underneath. “Vloo m’nah tjichar—there!” He pointed to two other wine bottles and, in the same grandiloquent sweep of his hand, to Caspar and the cloth on his side.

  Caspar lifted the cloth and pushed his two wine bottles under. “The Khyber Pass!” he said as understanding dawned.

  “Strackly! ’N turls!” The general beamed. He reached past John and pushed the fruit bowl to the end of the table. “Slade! No—pwartah say? Sale! Sale under siege, erha.” He strung a handful of nuts and figs down the Khyber Pass, saying, “Convoy ah hrunns haharition, ’n turls. Must get through.”

  Wineglass by finger bowl, plant pot by tangerine, the obscure geography of that remote corner of the empire as it had appeared to one of its military servants in the heat of the ambush of the fifth of April, in the year before Caspar was born, was re-created on the damasked table at Maran Hill.

  Step by barely intelligible step, the Khyberees were massacred, the fort of Ali Musjid retaken, Jellalabad relieved, and Muhammad Akbar’s force of six thousand defeated. “Gobba two strn’drds by whally—not to henchman four guns. What? Most excitin’ dayyer ahife—hwa! I’ll say. ’N turls.”

  He was breathing heavily, as if he had just run in with the news of the rel
ief of Jellalabad. He looked excitedly at the remains of the four bottles and for a moment Caspar feared he was about to repeat the whole episode.

  “Ah—what trade, general, is carried through the pass?” he asked quickly. “What would be its annual value?”

  “Hnurgh? H’aid? Hotch no idea—snot. Snot soldier’s bizzis. ’N turls.”

  John, acutely aware that the conversation had taken a not altogether happy path, said, “Shall we rejoin the ladies?” He hoped Young John had fared better.

  On the way out the general lurched against the table. At the far end, Jellalahad fell heavily to the floor, smashed to pieces, and strewed its fruit and nuts far across the carpet. “Hneurygh, swami massingham,” the general said. “Yes—’n turls.”

  ***

  “I see,” Linny Sherringham was saying at that moment. She had just stopped playing. Even her lips were drained of blood. “Yes, I think I see.” She stood up. “Well, Mr. Stevenson, do not think me insensitive to the honour you have…”

  “I think it fair to add…I’m sure I may safely add, in strictest confidence…that Lord Stevenson is to have an earldom conferred upon him in the new year.”

  “Yes. Ah…well, as I say, please do not think me insensitive to the honour you do me, but I fear I should prove quite incapable of living up to such towering ideals.”

  “But, Miss Sherringham, you would!” Boy pleaded. His world was slipping from his grasp. He could not understand it. All the while he had spoken of his dearest dreams, she had smiled in such sweet agreement.

  “I am…” She looked at his troubled eyes and almost melted. He was so handsome—how could he be so holy? What a waste! “I am very ordinary in my devotions. Very ordinary, you understand. I could not spin them out above ten minutes a day. Four to get up with and four while the maid swirls the warming pan.”

  “That’s only eight.”

  “And grace at meals.”

  “Oh, but you could,” he insisted. “You would see. It is such a joy to give each moment to God. And to choose continence.”

  She held up a hand. “No more, please, Mr. Stevenson. I assure you I am not your match. I never could be.” They had come to the door back into the drawing room. She turned and smiled sweetly. “There’s an end, now. Had I deceived you into false hope, or put you off and let it dwindle and dwindle, I should have disliked myself so.”