The boys were the place where she was exposed. The rest she could shoulder, turning her face away, calling to mind the next time she could see David. But when Edward’s hatred spilled out to his sons, it was an agony. The ease between the brothers somehow made him angrier; he saw Alfie’s kindness to his brother as sympathy for a weakling. He loathed that Alfie was always there, helping George, aware that his arm would slow him up, or filling his cartridge bag if they were allowed out together to shoot the pheasants and partridges in the nearby hedgerows, or sitting with the keepers on wet afternoons as they modified his gun to accommodate his brother’s palsy.
Jean had come upon the pair one afternoon in the gun room at Harehope. Another year was gone, the boys eight and nine now, away at prep school but home for the Christmas holidays. She adored having them back in the house, their mess and noise an ecstasy to her after weeks of creaking silence and latent tension. It was only half past three, but the days were so short here that the low afternoon sun had already bled below the horizon. Curtains were being drawn around the house and baskets of logs carried by footmen to lay the fires for the evening. The boys stood with one of the keepers as he cleaned their guns for them. He was explaining about the gun as he broke it, the stock and the barrels, both boys entranced by the sheen of the metal as he polished its smooth exterior, as he eased the pipes and cloth down the barrels.
‘His lordship will show you boys, if you ask him, I’m sure. I remember the late Lord Warre used to do it with Mr Charles and your father.’
‘We’d sooner learn from you, Robson,’ Alfie said quickly.
George looked across at Alfie. ‘He’s not very patient with us.’
‘I think I’ve got it anyway. George, let’s try now, just us.’ With heads bent low over the baize-covered table, the boys pieced the gun back together, handling each part with great care, while Robson stood behind watching. He looked up then, noticing Jean at the door.
‘They’re good lads aren’t they, m’lady. Not like my boys, scrapping and whining like a pair of pups.’
Jean smiled, and stayed watching them as they carried on, engrossed in their activity, the only sound that of their gentle breathing and the satisfying click as metal hit metal and slotted back into its rightful place, a look of triumph on their small faces as they passed the gun back to Robson, correctly assembled.
Edward walked in then, dogs trailing behind him, one of the underkeepers carrying his gun slip and cartridge bag for him. The atmosphere in the room changed immediately – Robson snapped to attention, disassembling the gun and putting it back in its case, nodding his head to Edward as he made room for him at the table.
‘How was your day, Papa?’ Alfie asked, his face earnest with that line of worry, experience having taught him that his father’s moods were often unpredictable, usually inexplicable.
‘Tolerable – two useless shots from next door who couldn’t hit a thing, and whose conversation was even worse. What’s been going on here then?’
‘I’ve been showing them how to clean their guns, m’lord. Took them out for a little walk through the east wood to shoot some pigeons. I should think they could do this on their own now. Little George was especially good at cleaning those barrels, weren’t you, Mr George?’
It was the note of sympathy that she knew set Edward’s teeth on edge. It was involuntary. The nature of the younger boy was so sweet, endearing him to everyone he met, that they couldn’t help it, unaware of how it repulsed his father. It was another reminder to Edward of his own inferiority in producing a son that the world acknowledged with relief as the second, with nothing required of him but an easy temperament. How perfect it was that the younger boy worshipped his older brother and that there was no jealousy between them. As it should be, their kind expressions and tilted heads would say as the pair progressed through boyhood.
‘It’s all very well cleaning the damn thing, but can you hit anything?’ He dumped his gun slip on the table and shed his jacket and boots without looking at any of them.
‘A bloody waste of time with that pathetic arm, if you ask me. A bloody waste of time. And you’re just rubbing it in, Alfie.’ And he walked out, door slamming behind him, leaving Jean and the boys to salvage something from a scene that he had ruined like this countless times before.
Jean made sure to come by their bedrooms after scenes like this – to have an extra few minutes with them both before bed, a rub of the back, a kiss on the head, to let them know that she loved every part of them more than they would ever need. That night she went first to George’s room, where he was reading, hair combed and knees pulled up, with a book open in front of him. He was happy, looking up, giving the flash of a smile that made her throat tighten when it followed the bruising of earlier. She kissed him, touched his cheek, picked up the eiderdown that had slipped off the bed, tucking it round him. ‘Nanny will turn off your lights in half an hour. God bless, darling.’
She left the door ajar as he liked, and walked down the corridor to Alfie’s room. His light was already off, but she knocked gently, pushing the door further open.
‘Darling, are you awake?’
The shaft of light from the corridor fell across the bed and she could see he was lying on his back, his eyes open. He nodded.
‘Still a kiss for me? I know you’re frightfully grown-up now.’
Alfie smiled, sitting up on his elbows, and she went and sat beside him, pushing his dark blonde hair back off his face, revealing that fine, high forehead. His eyes were serious in a way that only a nine-year-old boy’s could be, carrying a knowingness that belied the elfin face, and part of her didn’t want to ask what was troubling him. What good would it do when she knew she was powerless to change it?
‘All all right, darling?’
He nodded, saying nothing.
‘Is it Papa?’
Alfie nodded again, then looked down. She put her arms around him, that slim little body, those slight shoulders. ‘I hate it when he’s like that to George. And George shrugs it off. What’s he ever done wrong?’
‘I know, I know. It’s just the way your father is. He’s abrupt. He’s another generation, and perhaps his father was hard on him too. He doesn’t mean it.’
They both knew it was a lie, but Alfie took it up anyway. He gently pulled away, looking at her with those eyes of David’s, where emotion could not hide. She kissed him on the top of the head.
‘I’m so glad you’re both home. You have no idea how much I miss you.’
‘I miss you too, Mama.’ And he sank back into the pillows, and she kissed him again before leaving him.
She needed to bathe before dinner, but she paused before going downstairs, looking along the nursery corridor, with its faded carpets and hotchpotch of furniture and mismatched lamps. Though it was not done, not what mothers of her class did, she’d spent so many hours up here, lost in thought, happy simply to be near her two boys, to hear the gentle sound as they shifted in their beds or murmured in their sleep; to go and kiss them if they woke from a bad dream. Pathetic perhaps, a reflection of the emptiness of her life at Harehope. But all these moments had mounted up and it was only now, in the lull between their bedtime and dinner, that she saw how quickly it had slipped away.
Had she concentrated enough? Had she realised how lucky she was? Each moment was a blessing so fleeting it was like rain on dry ground, absorbed and gone before there was a chance to feel its impact. Alfie and George were at the far edge of childhood now, soon to leave the nursery for good. Her watch on this landing would soon come to an end; she couldn’t keep them up here forever, soothing away the creases with kisses and hugs and platitudes that, one day, they wouldn’t even pretend to believe.
But as her hand rested on the back of the armchair and she breathed in the familiar smell of mothballs and old wool, she knew that the greatest danger lay not in the outside world, in the realm of strangers, but right here on the nursery corridor at Harehope, in this place her boys loved with all their hearts, where the truth of who they were and their father’s knowledge of it stalked them both like the wolf in a childhood fairy tale, teeth bared, fangs drawn, glinting in the light of a perfect crescent moon.
The holidays passed as they always did, patches of bliss clouded over by interludes where Edward would crush George with his dismissiveness or flatten Alfie with his rejection. Christmas Day had been wonderful, the boys so absorbed by their presents and the distraction of other guests in the house that they didn’t notice his prolonged absences, or the tension between their parents. But now it was Sunday and they were to take the train back to their prep school, their trunks having already been packed and driven down. She hated the days they went back, knowing they were reluctant to leave, feeling the sadness permeating the house. Alfie would feign enthusiasm though she knew he missed her terribly. He was still so young, and it would be at least two months before she saw either of them.
George was being painfully slow, moping around the drawing room, half-heartedly looking for a book he said he was reading but couldn’t find, desperate to draw out the last few moments at home.
‘Come on, boys, Stokes is waiting.’ She was ushering them out, hands on their backs as she steered them out into the hall where Stokes stood, the small bag with their lunch for the train in his hand. ‘Mr Grieves will meet you at the other end. Stokes will see you onto the train, and then just be dears and read quietly. Don’t make a nuisance of yourself. I know you won’t.’
They had said their brief goodbyes to their father the evening before, a cursory shake of the hand in the drawing room before dinner as they stood before him in their flannel pyjamas, slippers on and hair, newly cut for the return to school, combed neatly to the side. They waited, unsure if he was going to kiss them, and she willed something to come from Edward that she knew would not. This morning he was out riding – he wouldn’t return till they were gone – and neither boy had made mention of him, though she felt their rejection in their quiet procession past the closed door of his study, a quick sidelong look at the room that, though empty, seemed to hold his presence still.
They walked out to the car, feet crunching on the gravel, breath freezing in the air, before she gave them both a hug, a quick rub of the head, a kiss, not wanting to prolong this part they hated so much before they got in. With the door still open, she leaned in to where George sat. ‘I’ll write all the time, I promise. Be good. And the holidays will come around again soon.’ She closed the door gently, pulled her cardigan around herself and watched the car make its slow progress down the drive. George had his eyes on her, craning his neck and turning in his seat, not wanting to break the look between them. She waved, blew him a kiss, waved again till she couldn’t make out his face any more, just the reflection in the glass of Harehope behind her.
She had carved out another two weeks in Paris, at the end of January, where she would see David. She needed him. The affection, the conversation, the tenderness that was entirely absent from her life here with Edward. But what of her boys? Summer felt an eternity away, but it would come. It would come, and the sun and the warmth, and the freedom from Edward and his judgement, would do what it always did. It would open up their lungs, allowing something different to be breathed in by them, without them even knowing it was happening, without them knowing what it did for them and why.
Jean turned back to the house. Took in its breadth as it waited for her, its current mistress, to return. She felt the pitch in the pit of her stomach, the pinch at her shoulders, braced herself for the battles to come. But she drew on the image of another place, of the house where her spirit resided, if not her body; of Antibes, where the sun cast its spell on the pale yellow stone of her house, where the scent of eucalyptus hung in the air and dusk came like a veil of velvet. She closed her eyes, saw David’s face before her, breathed in the smell of jasmine, felt the tension within her ease.
She exhaled and walked back through the open door of Harehope once more.