by Jane Lark
But he did not wish to put the boys in a carriage and send them off on the long journey back to school alone.
Henry walked into the breakfast room a little after eleven, with Stephen, Gerard and Percy.
“There is ham left, and some eggs,” their mother stated as Stephen and Gerard sat down.
Despite having eaten toast earlier the boys’ appetites had risen again and they both looked at a footman to encourage the offer of plates and food to put on them.
Percy leant over Gerard and picked up a sweet pastry from a plate on the table.
“Sit down, Percy,” Mama ordered, in a voice that held a reassuringly normal sound.
It was only his mother and Susan at the table, sitting opposite one another, and it was only Susan who was eating. His mother sat before a cup of chocolate.
He walked over to Susan, she had been watching him from the moment he walked in. He had not left a note beside the bed, but surely she had assumed the reason for his absence.
She smiled.
She was not upset with him, then.
He leant and pressed a kiss on her lips, then sat in the seat beside her facing his mother. He wanted to speak. The words itched behind his lips and tumbled through his throat. He swallowed them back. He would not ask her anything before his brothers.
“Susan has only just come down I am keeping her company…” His mother smiled at him.
He held Susan’s hand as it lay on the table. While she took a bite from the roll in her other hand.
She held his hand in return.
“Would you like anything to eat, my Lord.”
Henry looked at the footman. “No thank you, but I would welcome a cup of coffee, Ron.”
He nodded. “Sir.”
Another footman poured the coffee. Henry leant back so the man could reach the cup. “Thank you, Simon.”
His mother spoke to Percy and the boys. Henry wondered if she knew they wished to return to school.
“Did you all enjoy your ride?” Susan asked.
He sighed out a breath before answering, quietly. “Yes, but I am still thinking about the things you said to me last night. I wish to speak to Mama alone…” Her fingers tightened about his hand. “Gerard and Stephen want to return to school, I think it would be best if Papa accompanied them.”
“But you do not think he will.”
“No.” Henry sighed again.
“Smile, Henry. It would not be so awful if you must take them would it? Or are they beasts?” It was a jest, said to lift his mood and make him laugh.
He made a face at her. But within a moment, his mocking face became a genuine smile and he wished to embrace her. That would shock his brothers, and probably his mother. He’d not spoken of his love for Susan to anyone but her.
“When the others leave,” she said more seriously, “I will leave too, so you may stay with Au… Jane.”
“Thank you.” Fear grasped in his stomach, though, and how foolish to be afraid of speaking with his mother?
He kept hold of Susan’s hand as they joined the others’ conversation. The boys took twenty minutes to eat their fill, then they finally stood to go and find something else to do. Percy stood at the same time. Then Susan rose. Her hand settled on Henry’s shoulder in reassurance. He looked up and smiled. His mother had not risen.
He looked at his mother when Susan’s hand slipped away, but waited until Susan had left the room with the others before he spoke. His heart thumped in his chest as hard as it had when he’d sat beside William’s still body. He breathed in. These words had to be said for the benefit of them all. “Has Papa spoken with you about how he feels?”
She looked up at the footmen about them. “You may leave us alone, thank you.”
Henry waited until they left the room, then said again, “What has he said?”
Her elbows rested on the table and her hands gripped each other as she shook her head.
“What does a shake of the head mean, Mama? Are you telling me not to ask? Or has he said nothing? I cannot believe he’s said nothing to you. You must see that he is destroying things. He is shutting us out.”
“Henry.”
“It is the truth. I have no idea how to speak to him.”
“He is your father.”
“It has not felt so for days. It has not felt so to any of us. He has not cared about any of us since William died.”
“He has suffered because he was not there.”
“But you were. And I was.” And I need him! It was the first time he’d admitted those words to himself, yet they were true. “And Stephen and Gerard are alive and they need their father. They want to return to school. It should be Papa who accompanies them. They need him.” I need him. The words ran through his head once more. Susan had been wrong last night she had been right in the beginning—he was selfish.
“Ever since I have known your father he has turned away from things that are emotionally painful. He cannot cope with such things, he would rather fight and burn his emotions off with activity—”
Just as the boys were trying to do. “But William cannot be swept away by riding or walking, or—”
“Henry, do you not think that I know?” Tears glittered in his mother’s eyes.
He stood up and walked about the table. She turned so she sat sideways in her chair as he occupied the seat beside her. He held her hand.
“Your father is a complex man. I remember one day, before you were born, when he was upset he walked out into a rainstorm and was gone for hours. He returned. He will return to us, when he has come to terms with this.”
“When will that be, though? Stephen and Gerard are young. They are in the years that impact on the rest of their lives. They need Papa.”
“Give him time, Henry.”
“There is not time. They want to return to school. Where is he?”
Her eyes looked up above his head as she sighed. She was suffering too much to argue with him. “Your father went out riding. He rides out every day.”
“I know but to where?”
She sighed again and looked back at him. “I do not know, but my guess would be that one of the places he might be is the Abbey ruins.”
“Then I will look for him there.” Henry stood up.
She caught hold of his hand. “Robert will not welcome your intrusion. He would rather deal with his feelings alone.”
“So would I, but he has not given me the chance.” He pulled his hand away from his mother and turned away. He would damned well make his father see some sense.
~
Henry rode the stallion hard, its muscles were still warm from his morning ride and so he was not afraid to encourage the animal to stretch out immediately. The ruins were a long ride from the house—on the border of his father’s land.
He was delayed at a row of cottages, when the tenants stopped him to speak, but once he’d managed to excuse himself, he kicked his heels again, raced along the road and jumped the wall. Then galloped across the field and jumped a stream. Finally, as he rode out through the far side of an opening in the hedgerow he saw the ruins, stretching up to the sky. An ancient place of worship and life. A spiritual place.
He could understand why his father would choose to come here to think of William.
He slowed the stallion to a canter, then near the wall he slowed the animal to a trot and pulled the reins to halt him a few feet from the walls. He thrust his leg over the animal’s rump and then, feet together, balanced with his hands on the saddle before letting himself drop to the ground. He walked over to a tree and wrapped the reins about a branch, then walked back to a low unadorned entrance into the abbey ruins. The ground on the other side was lush green grass and the walls a mixture of coarse flint inner stone and ornate outer carvings.
The ruins were a clutter of walls and old rooms, but the large, long hall he walked into contained his father. He was here. The height of the walls and the remains of the ornate windows denoted the space as the Abbey’s former place o
f worship. At one time it would have been as grand as the Minster in York. His father was kneeling in the place where the remains of an altar stood.
Henry did not call to him. It seemed disrespectful. Instead he walked steadily towards him. Quietly.
Had his father come here every day and spent every day on his knees?
Henry wished to kneel and pray too, to pray for time to turn backwards and give them back William, and yet if time turned backwards it would take Susan, and all that had passed between them in the last days.
“Papa…” he said when he was only a few feet from his father.
His father looked back, then stood up and turned. “Henry…” His voice said, why are you here?
Because things have to change, Papa. “I need to speak with you.”
“So you have ridden out all this way…”
“Yes. As I said, I need to speak with you. Will you listen?”
His father sighed, then turned and walked towards an exit to the right of the altar. It was clear that years ago there had been steps down, now there was a slope. Perhaps the steps were there, hidden beneath the grass and mud, just like the emotions inside him had been hidden beneath a life that had lacked any need to care for others. As Susan had said, he’d never had need to look for those emotions before.
Henry followed his father into an area of numerous walls set out in squares, all only a few feet in height. “Papa…” His frustration rang back from the bare stone. “Will you listen?”
“As you have followed me here, how can I not.”
That was not the answer Henry wished for, he needed his father to want to listen. To care. And he was still walking away, with his back turned.
“I do not mean merely acknowledge me! I need you to listen!” In the past Henry had only raised his voice when he’d been defending himself over some accusation about a prank, or some other act of recklessness. But it was his father who was being reckless now.
His father looked back and their gazes clashed. “I am listening. I said speak.”
His father sounded as Henry might when accused of something. Perhaps they were too alike. Perhaps that had always been the issue.
“Gerard and Stephen want to return to Eton.”
His father turned around. “Already? Why?”
“Because they need things to feel normal to recover from their grief.”
His father stared at him. “And their home is not normal? I expected them to stay at least a week or two more.”
“Their home is full of memories and people in pain. Mama and the girls are often in tears, and you…”
“I what?”
“You ignore them.”
His father’s brow furrowed.
“I know it is because you are mourning William. I am too. But they were closest to him and they—”
“They have you and Percy.”
“We are not their father. They need their father. They need you.” I need you.
The last words perhaps showed in his eyes because his father walked forward. “And you?”
Henry drew in a deep breath, as the emotion gathered in the back of his throat, but he forced the words out around the lump that formed there. “I am in pain too. I need you too.” Guilt cut through him the moment the words were out. The younger ones, his sisters, his mother needed comfort, asking for it himself was another selfish act.
His father walked closer, looking Henry in the eyes. “I am in pain too. I need you all.” His arms lifted. Henry stepped into the embrace and wrapped his arms about his father, as his father’s arms came about him. He had not held his father since he’d been William’s age. He had out-grown such things, and yet he was giving his father comfort as much as receiving it.
His father let go. “Have I let you all down. Is that how it seems?” Moisture caught the sunlight and made his father’s brown eyes glitter.
Henry swallowed back against the lump of tears in his throat. “No. You have not let us down…”
His father sighed and his hand lifted and combed through his hair. “But you are telling me that you wished for support and you did not receive it from me, and so I suppose that is why you turned to Susan because she was there.”
“No, it was not that way with Susan. Susan and I had become closer in London. You told me months ago that I would know if it was love, I knew in London. I knew when I went to Brighton but Susan would not be disloyal to Alethea, and when I returned Susan left. But love cannot be deterred, I could not deny it and nor could she in the end. There is nothing for you to regret on my part. It is the others…”
His father stared at him for a moment. “If you know how it feels to be in love then you may imagine how it feels to love a child. A child that love has created. I will never forget the day you were born. I had not thought I would marry until I met your mother again. I had never even thought about children until Edward married Ellen and became John’s father, then there was Mary. I treated them like my children I was so convinced I would never become a father.
“So imagine then, when you were born, and I held you in my arms for the first time. It has felt the same when each of your brothers and sisters were born, and William… The last… And as special as you, the first. And he’s gone, and I was not there to hold him in his last moments as I should have been.”
His father’s eyes shone brighter with emotion.
Henry wrapped his arms about him, this time only to offer comfort. “Mama was there. She held his hand. We did not let him feel alone. Not for one moment.”
His father’s arms came about Henry as he accepted the embrace. “I cannot let him go. He was too young.”
Henry’s embrace firmed, holding his father tighter. “You will not let him go, you will not forget William, and you should not. I have sworn to myself I shall recall his name every day of my life. I did not spend the time that I should have done with the others, but I always thought that they would be there, now, I…”
His father’s body jolted and there was the sound of a choke that was half sob.
“Now I am making the most of the time I have.” Henry finished.
A sound like an animal in pain breached the air and then his father’s shoulders shook as he wept silently. Henry held on. They were the same in height and build, yet Henry held him with a memory of embracing Gerard at William’s bedside.
The emotion in Henry coiled but not like the snake, it was as tight as a copper spring, pushed down, the energy it could exude banking up.
His father pulled away and wiped at the tears with the heels of his palms. His leather gloves absorbed the moisture. He sniffed, then coughed. Then said, “I cannot forgive myself for not being with him.”
“William would forgive you. It would upset him to see you like this. It would upset him if he thought you were paying less attention to Stephen and Gerard because he had died. He would not want his death to be the cause.”
His father shook his head but more tears leaked from his eyes. He wiped his forearm across his face. “Forgive me. I have not let myself cry. It seemed such a selfish thing because my tears would be for myself not William. But these tears are for you all. For you all as the young children that I remember holding, and playing games with—and for William who is missing.”
“He will stay with us. He is in our hearts and memories. We will not allow him to be missing.”
“No.”
His father wiped his forearm over his face once more, then his hand gripped Henry’s shoulder and he looked into Henry’s eyes. “I love you, son.”
“I know.” Henry thought of Susan saying that and smiled. But it was true that it was in the way that Samson knew it. There had never been doubt, or need to challenge it. It was why he’d had the freedom to live carelessly. “I love you too. I have loved you even when you have stared me down for my recklessness.”
His father’s hand fell and he laughed. “I know. I know because I loved my father too, even when he banished me abroad.”
Henry smiled, a
nd then they embraced again. But the tone of this embrace was an expression of mutual feeling. Love. Loss… Care…
He let his father go. “Will you return with me?”
His father shook his head. “No. I need a little more time alone with my memories of William. I shall ride to the mausoleum. I still have things I want him to hear.”
Henry’s mind spun with images from the hours he’d sat beside William’s body, and the feel of his brother’s cold body in his arms as he’d carried him downstairs. His father had not lain William down yet; he was still holding him in his mind trying to keep William with them in a way he could not. Life had to continue, with William as a part of their memories. He’d gone, and it was kinder to the others to remember it and think mostly of them.
“Will I see you for dinner?”
“You will.” His father nodded.
Henry turned away. His heart pounded and there was pressure at the back of his eyes. He ignored it, and strode on across the grass to another exit to reach the place on the far side where his horse grazed.
When he reached the horse he gripped the pommel of the saddle and the rear end of the saddle and used his muscles to raise himself up, then swung his leg across the animal’s rump to take his seat.
Damn he was no longer meant to mount recklessly like that and for the first time in his life, he cared about protecting his life. He did not wish to risk death now—not now he had Susan.
He rode the horse forward for a few yards, at a walk, until he reached one of the low walls that he could see over. His father had sat on one of the ruined walls. His arm lifted and he wiped his forearm across his face.
Henry pulled the reins and spun his horse about. Then he kicked his heels and set it into a gallop.
Chapter Thirty-one
Henry walked up to his rooms, hoping Susan would be there and not in the drawing room. He was not in a mood to encounter anyone else but her. But she was not there.
He stripped off his gloves and the coat he wore for riding, but did not take off his boots, he was too eager to speak to Susan.