A Friend from Eton
DECEMBER 1916
Julian’s boots crunched into gravel. He wavered, grinding his heels deeper.
Home.
But there was something not right about it, something not whole. Sharp wind burned his ears and he raised the collar of his greatcoat. Before him, Castle Braemore sat at ease in its centuries-old place, prominent and ostentatious, heavy and weathered, swallowed by the landscape. It looked too tall now. Garish. The griffins bore down on him as a stranger. No little faces peered through the windows. No sound of falling water from the fountain. No birdsong, no motors, no braying horses or barking hounds. The lines around Julian’s vision blurred, like a nightmare, like an ill memory, like something was hiding on the periphery.
The car door slammed behind him. Julian’s heart stopped. His knees weakened, and momentarily, he could almost taste the gravel between his teeth.
But the gravel remained on the ground, and Julian remained on his feet.
Far away, the driver: “Milord?”
Julian had dropped his cap. The driver plucked it from the ground, swept a gloved hand over the top to scatter the dust. Julian accepted it with a nod.
Inside, the Great Hall was quiet and barren, footmen all gone to war, unused rooms closed. Julian had wanted to offer the house to the Red Cross for use as a convalescent hospital, but his mother had refused. She would not have the ill walking her corridors; she would not have strangers poking about her home. She would not get out of bed for the war.
Roland stood with his hands behind his back. How he’d grown! The last Julian saw him, he’d been the taller man. Now Roland had an inch on him. His brother smiled, his once soft, youthful cheeks carved and freshly shaved—shaving, too!
There was an odd, quiet moment as Roland took him in, the starched uniform, the combed hair, the shined boots. Julian knew there was little about the way he looked now that was reminiscent of who he’d been when he’d left.
“Lieutenant.” Roland stamped his shoe and tried a salute. “Damn, you look old.”
Julian chuckled and opened his arms. They embraced tightly, in competition to see who was the stronger. Thank God Roland was here, was clean, well-fed, safe.
“Mama?” Julian asked, stepping back.
“Taking a day in bed.”
He’d hardly had to ask. “Is Celia hiding from me?”
Roland’s face fell. “She’s stopping with Auntie Margaret.”
Julian handed his coat to the maid. “In Dorset? How long shall she remain?”
“She says until February.”
Celia’s letters had ceased nearly a year ago. Julian had hoped she wouldn’t refuse to see him on his leave, when there was every chance it might be the last. A grim thought, to be sure, but a thought he had often enough, being responsible for a family, an earldom, and a sizable estate.
“I’ll call there day after tomorrow,” said Julian, tiring at the notion of more travel. “Come along, if you like.”
“Is that wise?” Roland’s face bent sympathetically. “You know how Celia is. She’ll make a scene and Margaret won’t spare Mama from the gossip.”
The exhaustion of the journey washed over Julian, blurred lines drifting closer to the center of his vision. “Right you are . . .” He managed a twitch of the lip. “I might lie down for an hour. Then I shall have to see about Gwen.” His elder sister surely was not faring well, having lost her husband only months ago on the Somme. “We’ll speak tonight.”
Roland nodded. “Oh—and I’ve asked a friend from Eton for a few days. Do you mind terribly?”
“No.” Julian patted his brother on the shoulder. “This house could do with a livening up.”
Julian was in Braemore’s kitchen gardens, where he’d frequently find her by chance. But it was all wrong. Where there were meant to be cabbages and celery stalks, there were shell holes, twisted wire, and burnt branches like skeletal fingers reaching up from the mud. He pulled one foot out of the slime, released with a sucking sound and a splash up his trousers. Then he lifted the other, only to find the first stuck again. It went on this way until he was so cross with his lack of progress that he cried out.
That’s when she appeared, yellow hair blowing across her face, smiling as though all was well and the sun was shining.
The revetment and sandbags of a trench made themselves apparent. He was not in the kitchen gardens at all, and she was a long, long way from home. He threw himself forward to reach her, but remained stuck in the mud, sinking deeper with every breath. When the firing began, he called out to her to go, to leave, please run. Though no sound left his lips, only the feeble whisper of a man left without air. The firing kept on—bap bap bap!—and before he could think what to do, green gas engulfed her, and a bullet caught him in the belly.
Julian was shaken awake by the sound of his own voice, a weak, befuddled cry. On the other side of the door was knocking, the knuckle falls causing him to tremble.
He was on the floor; the bed had been too soft. But he’d only meant to shut his eyes for a moment. Sunlight stung Julian’s eyes as he sat up to see the clock—nearly half eleven. How, when he’d arrived home late afternoon? His arm hairs raised as he realized the lost time. Julian had slept through the night.
On the other side of the door, Huxley stood straighter than most enlisted men. “Sorry to disturb, your lordship. The dowager countess requests to see you in her rooms.”
Julian smoked a cigarette whilst he dressed. Part of the way through, he fell to a seat on the bed. The belt was giving him trouble, and the tie was suffocating, and buttons were great obstacles. He wriggled out of the jacket, leaving it abandoned on the mattress, and loosened his tie. It mattered little to Mama how he looked.
He took the short walk to her bedroom door and knocked.
“Come.”
The room was stale and smelled too sweetly of potpourri. The dowager lay in bed, an invalid desk pushed aside. Her face had grown wan since he’d seen her last, her once thick, dark hair gone fine and brittle. She sat up against the headboard with a mountain of pillows behind her, quilt folded over her lap.
Roland stood beside the bed, head bowed. Kicked and scorned.
Julian didn’t bother to say hello to his mother, didn’t bother telling her he’d had a fine journey home. In return, she didn’t bother saying she was glad he was alive.
“What’s happened?” he asked.
The dowager looked to Roland and folded her hands. “Tell him, go on.” Roland shifted on his feet, but refused to raise his eyes. “Tell your brother what you’ve done.”
Julian’s pulse throbbed against his tie. This felt all too familiar—Roland in trouble, and Julian called up to mend things. He thought Roland had settled since returning to Eton, matured, stopped feeling so much like the world was against him.
But now he saw fear in Roland, cowed by his mother’s scorn. So he went to the boy and put a supporting hand on his shoulder. “We’ll go and have a word, shall we?”
“No.” Mama pressed her hands against the mattress to sit taller. “I want him to tell you the truth, right here, so I know it’s plain. Now, Roland. Tell him.”
Roland chewed his lip and turned his head to Julian. His cheeks were colorless, eyes wet. “I’m sorry.”
“Tell him!” The dowager’s shrill voice set Julian’s teeth on edge. “Tell him what you were caught doing at the folly with that boy.”
“I was—” Roland’s head fell again.
Julian gripped his shoulder. “It’s all right.”
Roland shuddered and wrapped his arms around himself. “I was k-kissing him.”
From the bed, a sound of disgust, a glottal gasp that the dowager covered with a handkerchief over her mouth. “My own son—”
Julian hardly thought of the crime. For here was his little brother, terrified and humiliated before their mother. It mattered not what he’d done; Julian would not stand for it.
The dowager recovered from her moment of shock, and dropped the handkerchief from her mouth. “Well? What will you do with him?”
“We’ll have a word—”
“You must telephone the doctor immediately—the boy is unwell. This isn’t natural behavior, and an end must be put to it directly before anyone else hears of it.”
Roland’s back convulsed under Julian’s hand. He felt the pressure of rage in his temples, in his jaw. “Roland does not require a doctor.”
“The constable, then.” Their mother’s eyes were wild now, her cheeks ruddy with the surge of purpose. “That boy has never been right—how many times have I told you?”
“Enough.”
“He’s always been a wretched little beast.”
“Enough!”
She closed her lips.
Julian hardly recognized his own voice at such a volume. There were times in battle, during drills, where he felt some other man was shouting through his open mouth. Even Roland demurred at the sound. But Julian had done what he’d intended. He’d scared his mother to silence.
“I will deal with this,” he said.
Her mouth wrinkled, grey lips firm. “You’re not fit to deal with this, Julian. You’ve always been too timid to discipline properly. You allowed him to run rampant as a child, and now look what shame he’s brought us! This is your doing—all your doing—you spoil him!”
Julian held Roland closer, forgetting that his mother had ever been young, pretty, anything other than bitter. “If you do not find the way I run this house to your standards, I’m certain your sister Margaret has a spare room for you.”
To this, his mother had no reply.
Roland dragged his feet to Julian’s apartments. It had been clear since he was a child that something was awry. Roland never fit in his place as second son, never got on properly with other children. Always angry, always pinching his sister, always fighting every rule. Now it made sense. The boy might’ve been battling himself since he was small, uncomfortable in his skin, thinking himself ill.
Julian sat Roland on the sofa and went to pour himself a drink. He took the pause of a long sip to reorder his thoughts. Though the longer he lingered on the issue at hand, the less he was concerned with the actual doing of it, and the more he feared the consequences Roland would face if he was found out.
“Now,” Julian began, hearing again the voice of an officer. He tried to be softer when he continued: “Knowing what you say will not affect how I feel about you as my brother, nor how I will regard you as a man—tell me again what has happened.”
Roland took a shaking breath, wiping his eyes. “Freddie and I were up at the folly, sitting on the steps. I told him it was safe there.” Julian nearly laughed. It had proven time and again to be a failed hiding place. “So I kissed him, and I suppose the groundskeeper saw us.”
Julian tried to imagine Roland with another boy, both dressed finely in tailored suits, hot breaths mingling between swollen lips. It wasn’t uncommon at a boys’ school; Julian remembered the whispers and rumors and naming of names. It was not right, surely? Against the law and against nature, as his mother said. But Roland looked so very innocent.
Julian sat beside him. “Was it the first time you’ve done this?”
Roland shook his head. “Freddie kissed me at school. And I knew it was wrong, but—” He pivoted to face Julian. “I’ve never felt anything like it. I’ve never felt—whole. It was as if the world shifted to spin in the proper direction. Like I’d been wearing my shoes on the wrong feet.”
Julian couldn’t help but smile. He put his hand on Roland’s back.
“Freddie’s older, you see,” Roland went on. “He’s been called up, and he’s leaving soon, and I think I might never see him again and I—damn it.” His head fell to his hands with a sigh. “I love him.”
Julian’s first thought was to push the notion aside. In love? At Roland’s age? No—he was young, this would pass. The boys would grow up and talk to girls and forget the game they’d played at Braemore when the world was ending.
Then Julian saw a flash of blond hair, a body beneath thin cotton, a wet handprint on the worn boards of the dock. He had been Roland’s age when he met Lily—sixteen. He had been in love. Love that was impossible. And there was nothing he could have done to quell it.
When Julian stood to refill his glass, Roland’s bloodshot eyes came up. “You won’t really send for the doctor, will you?”
“No.” Julian poured whisky and downed it in one. “There’s nothing wrong with you.” Roland’s brows withdrew from one another and he sat back into a comfortable seat. Julian refilled the tumbler and put it in his brother’s hand. “Take some of that, it’ll help.”
Roland did, grimacing at the burn. “Why are you so calm?”
Julian looked past him out the window, where the sun, a shock of yellow, pierced the cold greyness of a winter’s day. It was warm inside, with the hearth burning. They sat comfortably on plush cushions, above where a hot meal was being prepared for them. What a contrast to war life, which Julian would return to in a week’s time. So quiet here in the country.
Though, if he listened, he could still hear the spit of distant machine guns puttering in his ears like a wax cylinder recording that refused to end.
“I lost two thirds of my men on the Somme,” Julian said, sitting beside Roland. “Many of them were boys your age—brave, no doubt, but having no place in a war. I watched them die—shredded and broken open in ways one could never imagine. I suppose seeing their lives lost so uselessly has given me perspective. I can hardly be cross with you for loving the wrong person, so long as you’re alive and well.”
Roland tipped his weight against Julian’s shoulder. “Freddie wants me to go with him. He said I’m tall enough; I can lie about my age so we can go together.”
Julian pinched Roland’s neck hard enough to make the boy wince. Good—he wanted this to linger. “Hear me. You are not to go with him, do you understand?” Roland could hardly nod in his grasp. “I don’t care what he or anybody else tells you—you’re too young, and you must remain here for your sisters. Promise me.”
“I promise—ow!”
“And you and this boy—you stay apart at school. If you want to be together, you’ll come here to Braemore. I shall speak to Mama, I’ll ensure it’s safe for you, but it will not be safe outside these walls. Out there you are a criminal. Is that clear?”
Weaker now: “Yes.”
One more long scorn and Julian released Roland’s neck. Brought his brother’s head roughly towards his face to kiss his curls.
Roland wiped his eyes on his sleeves, and sighed a rattling breath. Julian could see the boy’s shock at how rough he’d been. It wasn’t like him, truly, but it hadn’t felt wrong until after he’d done it. Julian studied his hands, wondering if they’d ever be clean again.
“Thank you,” Roland said. Julian looked up. “I shall not soon forget this.”
Gwen nuzzled her nose against Anna’s tummy. The baby shook with choking laughter. Gwen smiled and pulled Anna’s dress the rest of the way down, then picked her up from the cradle to bounce on her hip.
“How pretty you are,” she said, fluffing the hair at the nape of Anna’s neck, long enough now to curl. “Pretty Anna—clever little girl. How are we?”
A quiet knock on the door. She called for the butler to enter, and he put his head in. “Lord Wakeford is downstairs for you, my lady.”
A rush of warmth spread through Gwen’s body. Julian was home. More importantly, he was safe. She could hardly wait to see him.
As she flew down the stairs, clinging to Anna, she already felt the pull of tears. Julian stood in the hall, accosted by a trio of Richard’s setters, weaving in and out between his legs. Gwen couldn’t help but think it was just how her husband would look, greeting his hounds.
Julian turned and smiled, hands still brushing over the wiggly dogs’ fur. “I know, I’m frightfully late.”
Gwen threw her free arm round his neck, with Anna sandwiched between them. One of the dogs barked his protest, and having lost Julian’s attention, the three of them scattered.
“Thank God you’re all right.”
Julian seemed content to be held, said not a word. He smelled of harsh soap and winter air, the wool of his jacket still cold against her face. He was so solid now, so rigid—a man rather than a boy. Was he taller, or did she imagine it?
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
She kissed his cheek and stepped back to inspect him. My—he’d aged. Far older than his years, sunken and creased, the evidence of what he’d seen sketched darkly over what was once boyish charm. His chin was unshaven, the skin beneath his eyes swollen and purple, the rest stretched thinly over cheekbones she’d never known to be distinguished. The exhaustion of war had reduced her brother so severely that Gwen’s eyes spilled.
She wiped her face, reminding herself Julian, too, was in mourning. More tears would not help either of them. “They don’t feed you enough,” she said.
He moved in what might’ve been a shrug if he’d had the energy. “I missed breakfast.”
Gwen shook her head and smoothed Julian’s lapel. His attention had caught on the child on her hip, and Anna was quite taken by him. Her gaze was wide, her mouth agape, in a twelve-month-old’s stare that could go on all day if there was something pretty to look at.
Julian’s eyes shimmered. “She’s grown.”
“More and more each day. Walking a bit, too.”
“Good. That’s good. Does she cry much?”
“No—never has. Sleeps like a dream.”
“I say . . .”
Anna conjured a babble to make herself known. “Who is that?” Gwen asked her. “Why, is that your uncle Julian? Come to see you? How handsome he is in uniform, hm? Would he like to hold you?”
Julian shook his head, bracing hands into fists. He stepped back, boots clicking on marble. “I’m not, er—my hands are dirty.”
“Don’t be absurd,” she said. “Go on, take her. She’ll like your buttons.”
Gwen moved the chubby lump of lace off her hip, holding Anna out so Julian had no choice but to scoop her up, cradle her against his chest. As predicted, Anna went for the bronze buttons, shiny and small enough for her to pinch with her newly nimble fingers.
Julian gaped at the boulder of a head like he’d never seen anything like it before. Then he dipped his nose, nuzzling the mess of silken hair. His brows tilted back, and Gwen’s throat ached to see pain on her brother’s face.
“There, see? Thick as thieves.” She patted Julian’s cheek, feeling the shift and flex of tense muscles. “She has a terribly good life; I don’t mind saying so.”
He surrendered a smile. “She’s beautiful.”
“Isn’t she just?”
As they waited for the tea things to be brought, Gwen sat on the sofa with one of the dogs curled at her feet, and Julian paced the drawing room. Lulled by movement, Anna dozed with her head on his shoulder. Gwen watched, not hearing what he whispered to her child, knowing they were words of love.
“Do you know,” she said, “you’re beginning to resemble Papa.”
Julian’s eyes flicked to the ceiling cynically.
Gwen chuckled. “Honestly! You have his way of walking.”
He shook his head, brushing his cheek against Anna’s hair. To the ticking of the mantel clock, they considered the notion. Julian closed his eyes, looking keen to trade places with the slumbering baby. “Celia’s in Dorset,” he said.
Gwen’s precious joy waned. So wrapped up in her grief, she had barely attempted to convince Cece to stay. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“How is she?”
“Fickle as ever.”
Julian moved for the window, then spun again. “Guinevere—?”
Gwen had not heard her full name used by anybody in years. To hear it from Julian’s lips put her on edge. “What is it?”
Anna shifted and Julian began to sway, shushing softly, and cradled her neck with limp fingers. When she settled again, he said, “Roland.”
Of course, just when he was beginning to show some promise as a gentleman. “What has he done now?”
“He’ll need your help in the coming years.”
“What with? Julian, please speak plainly.”
“You must love him.”
“I do, fiercely. Look; come sit. You’re frightening me.”
Julian sank beside her, keeping Anna close. “Roland is happy, as I was at an age. You must allow him to be happy. You must prevent him from repeating my mistakes.”
Before Gwen could think of how to reply, the butler entered with the tea things. She waited patiently as he poured, wanting so badly to understand what Julian was on about. She saw a fear in him she recognized. She’d seen the look on Richard when last she saw him, as he looked at Anna and realized that his life was terribly fragile.
Alone again, Julian was the first to speak. “Richard said she has eyes like yours.”
It was as though he’d seen her thoughts. At the mention of her husband’s name, Gwen clean forgot all else they’d been discussing. “He didn’t.”
“He did. He said she had a mouth like a rosebud.” Julian touched Anna’s lip with his knuckle. She stirred, but didn’t wake.
“You’re just saying that to please me.”
“I’m not.”
Gwen propped her arm on the back of the sofa, attempting to hide her quivering lip with her hand. But the tears came anyway, and once they started, there was naught to be done. Julian produced a handkerchief from his chest pocket and put it in her hand.
Normally, Gwen kept her loss at bay. She distracted herself with the ritual of caring for Anna—washing, changing, naps, and playtime. She hated to think of what life might have been if she had lost Richard before finding her. With Roland at school and Celia growing up, Gwen was hardly needed by her family any longer. Anna’s care was all that kept her going.
The house was empty without Richard. It was his, truly, not hers. She felt a stranger now that he was no longer there to warm his side of the bed. A sob shook her ribs.
“I loved him so dearly.”
Julian put his free arm around her. “I know.”
“He was only just here.”
Anna woke, unsettled now her mother was upset. Julian brought her to his shoulder, bouncing her gently, and she calmed again.
“Did you really see him?” Gwen asked, dabbing at her eye. “Before?”
Julian nodded. “After they told us there’d be a push, we went into town for a drink. He’d only just returned from leave, and Anna was all he could speak of.”
Gwen reached her arm around Julian’s neck and pulled him close. She felt if she let go, if he moved an inch, she would shatter across the floor, irreparable. How had things gone so wrong so quickly? She was meant to have such a marvelous life, she and Richard and Anna. It had taken so long for her to find him and he had been perfect.
“I admired him,” said Julian. “He was a better man than I.”
Gwen brushed her hand down Anna’s hair.
“He would have made a proper father.”
They were silent for a moment, and Gwen’s head started to spin, her face hot. She leaned away to sit straight, to close her eyes, and willed the sea of rough waves beneath her to calm. Julian touched her shoulder and she turned to smile at him.
“Are you well?” he asked.
“I am, my boy,” she answered, and took his hand from her shoulder to set it on her tummy. “As it happens, Richard may have his heir after all.”