Forever Remain
Page 7
Thank you for sharing your wisdom and for giving me your confidence. And may I be the first to congratulate you on your suspicion (which I am sure is now confirmed) that you are to be a father for the sixth time in the new year. I will await your dear wife’s letter to Mary before I am suitably surprised to learn the news.
To tell you a little about our infant, he has inherited his mother’s glorious coloring. It is a family trait, is it not, with your son Lord Augustus having a head of red curls, and Mary said her grandmother (who is your dear mother’s grandmother, also) was famous for her red hair. And though there was no portrait of the Countess of Strathsay at Treat for her to show me, there is one hanging at Fitzstuart Hall which I will be sure to seek out when we visit.
All being well with Mary and the babe, we mean to travel into Buckinghamshire at the end of summer to spend a month at Fitzstuart Hall as guests of Lord and Lady Fitzstuart, so that our families can become better acquainted, and we will meet for the first time their infant twins. I mention them here because Her Ladyship wrote to Mary that while her son has a head of black hair just like his father, their daughter has fair hair that may indeed be a shade of red. Such news was music to Teddy’s ears and she is determined to start her own club amongst her relatives with price of admittance being, you guessed it, the possession of a head of red hair, or a shade of that color. I believe two of your progeny will have instant admittance.
You can imagine then Teddy’s response when she learnt that her baby brother has a shock of red hair. She was more excited about this fact than she was having a brother, which is what she most wished for because she will be able to teach him to climb trees and to ride a pony, so, as she put it “David and I can go a roamin’ at our leisure”! Did that make you chuckle as much as it did me, Your Grace?
I shall leave you shaking your head at your niece’s exuberant pronouncements to return to my wife’s side, where I hope to hold my infant son and stare at him in contented stupefaction, as all new fathers must, at the miracle of life.
Yours & Sincerely,
Christopher
C. Bryce
PS. You enquired about the wool yield of a Cotswold Lion, as well as the possibility of breeding the lion with perhaps a Leicester ram in the hopes of improving carcass quality. I shall mull the latter over and write to you about this and the other matters you raised under separate cover. As for the former, a ewe can produce an annual fleece of about twelve pounds of white wool. As you see, fatherhood has not turned my brain completely to mush... yet!
Proud Mary Family tree
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Satyr’s Son Letters
14. The [Fifth] Duke of Roxton to Lord Henri-Antoine Hesham
His Grace the Most Noble [5th] Duke of Roxton to Lord Henri-Antoine Hesham.
[Believed to have been written in December 1772, and given to His Grace’s twelve-year-old son upon the Duke’s death in early 1774.]
* * *
My dearest boy—my son,
To my great sadness, I will not live to watch you grow into the fine young gentleman I already know you are. I never wanted to leave you. I never wanted to spend a day away from you. And I never regretted a single moment with you, watching over you, and being by your side whenever you needed me to be there.
Maman and I waited many years for your arrival, and when you finally came we were happy beyond words. You have given us such joy. You are so wanted and loved. Please never forget that.
I wish I could have held on to life for that little bit longer, to look after you, to protect and watch over you, and to help you better understand that there comes a time in everyone’s life, from the crossing sweep to His Majesty, when we must pass from this earthly existence into the next, to be welcomed into the kingdom of heaven. But to do so means leaving our loved ones—leaving you—behind to live without us.
Please excuse your papa for one moment while he wears his ducal coronet from beyond the grave, to advise you, his son, of his four maxims: Strive to control your emotions when in the public gaze. Love and laughter are to be reserved for the privileged few. Arrogance is a nobleman’s prerogative, but a true gentleman chooses to be humble when the circumstance calls for it. Never forget you are my son; others won’t.
I am chuckling as I write this, for I am certain you are rolling your eyes and sighing and wish to complain to your dear papa that you know these maxims well enough, and that you have not forgotten them, and are not likely to ever forget them because I have told you them often enough, particularly before our visits to Versailles. And yes, you have always done Maman and me very proud. So! Enough of papa’s lecturing.
Though I do have one last favor to ask of you, and that is for you to keep this thought with you at this time: None of what is happening around you—my passing, Maman’s grief, Julian’s sadness—is your fault.
Did I not tell you many times that my illness had nothing to do with you? And this you must believe because it is the truth. What is also true is that your life, the life you knew when your papa was well, will never be the same again. For the longest time you will be sad. That is only natural. And for the longest time, Maman and Julian they will not be themselves. It is perfectly acceptable for you to shed tears and to wonder if the world has gone a little mad.
But I promise you that as the years go by, and you grow taller and stronger, life will return to some semblance of normality, and you and Jack (who is the best friend you could possibly have) will be carefree again and live life to the full.
That is what you must do, for me, for Maman, for Julian, for Jack, and most importantly, for yourself—live, and enjoy your life. I know that you will never forget me, that I will not be far from your thoughts, and that there will be times, quiet moments, and moments of stillness, when you will feel an oppressive weight upon your chest of unbearable sadness. You will sob until it hurts to breathe, and you will wonder why life could be so cruel as to take your dearest papa away from you too early.
And how could your papa possibly know what it is like to feel abandoned and lonely, as if cut adrift and floating directionless on rough seas, and everything around you is a vast dark ocean, and all because your papa is not there by your side to steer you to a safe harbor?
I know this because when I was your age I lost my own dear papa, and in the most tragic of circumstances. I became adrift in this vast dark ocean. And while the circumstances of his passing are different, the experience was no less harrowing, and in some respects—and this you may not wish to believe because how could your grief be surpassed?—it was far worse, because of what happened after he died.
So I wish to share this experience with you by telling you a final story. How could your papa leave you without one last tale to tell? You were a most excellent listener and audience to your dear papa’s fantastical tales of his misspent youth, whether told to you in the English or French tongues. Those hours you lay on the couch recuperating afforded me the leisure and the opportunity to recall my many adventures, and to reflect on my life, and I thank you for that opportunity.
So indulge your dear papa while he tells you about himself when he was twelve years old.
For this story I will call myself Renard, which is the name my parents gave me, and the name Maman calls me when we are private. This will make it easier for me to relate such traumatic events, for while your brother and Martin know of this episode, I have only shared my inner most thoughts and the details with your Maman. Now I wish to confide them in you. I hope too that when you are older, perhaps many years into the future, when you come across this letter, you will read this story again and you will have an even greater understanding, and thus appreciation, of why I confided it in you.
The story begins over half a century ago, in Paris, at our hotel on the Rue St Honore. Here Renard lived as a boy with his parents and baby sister. In other respects it was like our family too. Parents who loved one another wi
th a son who was an only child for many years before another sibling arrived to surprise everyone. And with the arrival of the baby, many visitors came to the house bearing gifts and to coo over the infant. There were parties and fetes at home, and day trips into the countryside to take the infant to meet aging relatives.
Renard loved his baby sister, but he was sullen that she should receive so much of his parents’ time and the attention of these important relatives. His papa saw this, and wished to make amends. So one day, when his baby sister was about nine months old, his papa offered for Renard to accompany him on the week-long hunt in the forests of St. Germain. But Renard’s mama would not hear of it, saying the hunt was too hazardous and no place for a boy. Was Renard’s papa out of his mind? He had only one son and heir. It was enough that she had the worry of her husband risking his neck, without her son risking his as well.
No matter how loud and long Renard pleaded to be allowed to accompany his papa, his mama would not change her mind. Renard said that if his papa truly loved him he would take him along, regardless of his mama’s objections. But his papa would not yield, and told Renard that remaining with his mama and baby sister was for the best; was he not the man of the house when his papa was away from home? He must take care of his family until his papa’s return.
Renard was not to be appeased and he spat out that his papa did not love him at all. For good measure he declared that he hated both his parents equally. Renard was to regret those words for the rest of his life.
From a window high up in the hotel, Renard watched the activity in the stables courtyard as his papa and his men readied themselves. Stable hands prepared the horses, and a carriage was loaded up with servants and supplies to accompany their master on the week-long adventure. He saw his mama come out to farewell his papa, and his papa give her and his baby sister a kiss of farewell. His papa then looked up to the window with a smile, and waved. But Renard was so embarrassed to think his papa knew he was there all along that he scrambled away without waving back. And when he rushed back to the window, regretting his petulance, his papa with his men were off under the archway and out of sight.
It was the last time Renard saw his father alive.
Renard’s papa died on the hunt, taking a fall from his horse and breaking his neck. It was a swift, painless death, and he was gone, just like that, within a blink of an eye, leaving behind an inconsolable young wife, a twelve-year-old son, and an infant daughter. And now Renard, at twelve, was head of his family, and his mama and baby sister were his responsibility. But he was not given much of an opportunity to exercise this new-found maturity, for just three months after his father’s death, while the family were still in deep mourning, strangers arrived at the hotel in the dead of night, to take Renard away to live with his grandfather in far-off England.
Renard’s mama, her French family, and their lawyers were powerless to stop this. With his papa’s death, Renard was now heir to his English grandfather’s dukedom. And because he was heir to this dukedom, his grandfather had rights over him. Renard had never met this old man, he knew very little of the English tongue, and he had never visited the country of his father’s birth. But most importantly of all, he had never been away from his mother.
This meant nothing to the strangers who had come from England to collect him. Renard was taken forcibly from his home, from his mother’s arms, in fact. The servants fell about in fits of despair and his mama howled like a wounded animal as her son was dragged away and bundled into a carriage. Renard kicked and screamed and tried everything in his power to be free of his jailers, but to no avail. He thrashed about in the carriage, determined to escape, and when they could not stop his hysteria and calm him with words, these men fell upon him, he a thin slip of a boy, and beat him until he was still. He was then tied up so he could not move at all, and a cloth pushed between his teeth and bound about his head so he could no longer make a sound. Terrified, Renard wet himself, and he was so ashamed to have lost control of his dignity that he fainted. When he woke, he found he had no tears left to shed and fell into a stupor from which he never fully recovered.
With his father dead, and separated from his mother and baby sister, Renard was no longer surrounded by love and cocooned in a warm happy place. He was forced to live with his ancient grandfather, the fourth duke of Roxton, who was a cold, bitter old man unused to the company of children. This old man was a stranger, and Renard hated him. But he was smart enough to realise that he need only bide his time, for it could not be many years before his grandfather died, and then he would be duke, and no one would be able to tell him what to do. And when he became duke he would return to France, to his family, and he would never leave them again.
Renard bottled away his grief, but in so doing he bottled away his heart, and any love that he had to give. But as there was no one to receive his love, or to give him love, it was an easy adjustment to make. He mentally put his heart in a jar, and locked it away in a cupboard deep inside himself.
The old duke lived for another seven long years, and in those years Renard was forbidden to speak or write in French, and to have any contact with his mother. The old duke wanted his grandson to be an Englishman, to forget his father and his French maman, and to forget the life had lived in Paris. Renard was sent to Eton and to Oxford, and when he inherited the dukedom just after his nineteenth birthday, he was in every respect an English duke, of which his old grandfather could be proud.
You must wonder how Renard could possibly forget his French heritage, his mother who loved him, and the life he had in Paris with his parents. But you see, my dearest boy, without love, without the warmth of his parents, and with the loss of his dear papa, something of Renard—your papa—died inside him. And when I became duke at such a young age, I decided that I had no need of the heart I had stored away in a jar in a cupboard deep inside me, for having a heart had only ever caused me great sadness.
I lived in this way, without love, and without a heart, for almost two decades. It was Maman who found that cupboard and unlocked it, and it was she who found the jar with my heart in it, and she set it free. It was her love and her belief in me that made my heart beat with love again. And since that day, I have wondered how I lived so much of my life without it.
Your dear papa tells you this tale, my darling boy, not so you will be sad for him, but because he knows that to live without love is not to live at all. It was wrong to keep my heart in a jar. It was wrong to lose all hope and to despair. It is better to have loved and to feel loss, than not to have loved at all. You must grieve, and you must feel the loss of me so that one day in the future, when you find the love of your life, you can love and know great happiness and accept the love of another freely. This, too, you must do, for your maman, who loves you so very much, and who, after a time of mourning, will be there for you, always.
I promise you that one day, not today, or even tomorrow, but one day, when you are a young man, all this will come to pass. You will have to trust your dear papa about this.
I also told you this story about the young Renard so that I may apologize to you, for leaving you, just as my papa left me. Though my papa did not have the luxury of saying his farewells. I trust that when the day came that I finally had to leave you, you were far better prepared than I ever was. And no one will ever tear you away from your mother, your brother, and your family. You will always have them. You will always have a home here at Treat. And you will always be surrounded by people who love and care for you. Of that I give you my word and solemn promise.
You are not to worry if you shed tears over this letter, or even if you are so angry at me for leaving you that you scrunch these pages into a ball and toss them on the fire. If it will make you feel better, do so. This is a copy of the original I have left with your brother, for safekeeping. He is charged with giving you the originals of all my letters upon your twenty-first birthday.
Your papa needs to rest now. And I have written enough in this letter that I hope it give
s you some comfort, and for you to know that you have not heard the last of your dearest papa! He will have more to say in his next epistle. Until then, he remains—he forever remains—your dearest loving papa.
R
15. The [Fifth] Duke of Roxton to Lord Henri-Antoine Hesham
His Grace the Most Noble [5th] Duke of Roxton, to Lord Henri-Antoine Hesham, on attaining his majority.
[Believed to have been written in December 1772, before His Grace’s death in early 1774, and held in trust by his successor and His Lordship’s brother, then given to His Lordship on his 21st birthday; seal broken 1782.]
* * *
My dearest boy,
Congratulations on reaching your majority.
I remember your birth as if it were yesterday, when I held you in my arms that first time, your maman and I so overjoyed and overwhelmed to welcome another son into our lives. And so I am exceedingly happy to be sharing this most special of anniversaries with you via this letter.
Your dearest papa told you many years ago that you had not heard the last from him, and so here I am to be with you for this short interval. I may not be able to kiss and hug you, but know that I am most definitely with you.
But I do not write from beyond the grave to unsettle you, or to stir up painful memories of my passing, but in the hopes that in the intervening years since your dearest papa had to most reluctantly leave you, you have lived your life well, and been happy. I do not doubt you have grown into a fine young gentleman of which I can be very proud.