Sons of Fortune (54 page)

“Very good, Abbie,” he said, growing serious again. “I hope you will one day be able to say it to the mater; it will cheer her up no end. I give my solemn promise I won’t say it. But I also hope you will be grown-up enough about it to know when the time will be ripe—even if it means waiting for years and years. You will wait, won’t you?”

She smiled and nodded with such sincerity that for once, despite all those years of shattered promises behind them, he found it possible to believe her.

“Oh, Abbie,” he sighed. “What are you going to do in life, eh? That tongue of yours will unmarry you a thousand times before you’ve even one ring on your finger.”

“Oh, I won’t marry,” she said with such a simple lack of drama that—coming from her—it rang like revealed truth.

“No,” he said, catching her solemnity. “I imagine you won’t.”

“I’ll be an artist,” she said, “or a writer, and I’ll lead a delicious life.”

He sat cross-legged on the bed and took her hands in his, relishing a sibling intimacy they had never before gained. “Isn’t it nice,” he said, “to know exactly what you want to do!”

“Godlike!” she said.

Later, when she had gone back to her own room, he thought over this conversation. The events of this Christmas—despite all the horse rides and snowball fights and feasting and all the other family fun—were moving with a sort of doomed inevitability toward a grand, not to say lifeshaking argument between their father and Winifred and himself. Yet this little encounter with Abbie hinted at an endless succession of such battles as each child grew toward his or her majority. What would their father make of Abbie’s wish to be a painter or writer!

Had his parents any inkling of what was coming along? He’d been so absorbed in his own problem—with an occasional glance at Winnie’s—that he simply hadn’t noticed Abbie. It was odd, too, that despite all the hateful, hurtful, odious things she had said and done to him—and to others, to be sure—ever since she had first drawn breath, it was hard not to love her and want to help and protect her. This hard shell she affected was a mask to a rather lost, rather frightened, eternal child. Of all his brothers and sisters she was the one to whom he felt most in bondage; and tonight, he thought, she had sensed it. What would she now make of it? He knew that if he won his own personal battle, and if she needed his help to win hers, he could never refuse it to her.

For form’s sake it was still Boy who squired Linny Sherringham over most of her jumps that Boxing Day meet; but when his hunter went lame on him it was natural enough for him to retire and ask Caspar to take over his duties—Linny had spent most of the checks talking with Caspar, anyway. When Boy got home the general asked him—or told him—to make a two for billiards.

Twelve hours’ absence from the port bottle had made a great improvement in the old man’s intelligibility, to the extent that Boy was able to grasp about two words in three.

“Sign a hiss-spent youth, they say.” The general guffawed as he took his break past the thirty mark. “Played a horfu’ lot. Know that. ’N turls.”

Boy played miserably.

“Turn ye down, hnuh huagh?” the general asked.

“It would seem so, sir.” Boy rallied and smiled. After all, they were men together. It wouldn’t do to make the whims of a woman so important.

“Lot o’ that on the Frontier, ’n turls. Yes.” His fifth break went to forty-five. “What what what!” he chirrupped.

“I didn’t know we had womenfolk up there,” Boy said.

“Hnuh? No Onona. Here! Womenfolk are here. Broken hearts are there.” Down went the red with a smack. “Damn nuisance, ’n turls.”

Boy laughed uncomfortably. “I don’t think it’s that bad in my case, sir. Faith, you know, is a great comfort.”

The general put down his cue and looked at Boy in a mixture of astonishment and delight.

“I mean,” Boy said, “I don’t think I shall suddenly be appearing on the Frontier.”

The general’s delight faded. “Pity. Mmmmnh.” He chewed his lips. “What we need. Men of faith. Men of vision. Not your brother—
trade!
Pshwah! Fortin hundrun, ’n turls.” The sentence dissolved in a trembling whistle that subsided into normal, if somewhat loud, breathing.

“My brother, sir? Caspar?”

“’S fella. Trade! Hmh money.” He pierced Boy with his eye “Faith!” he barked. “A Christian mission of sword, fire, and Bible, sir! Trade? Pshwaah!”

“What’s it like out there, sir?” Boy asked. “I mean, what’s it
really
like?”

The general took the cue from Boy’s hand and laid it parallel with his own upon the table. “Khyber Pass,” he said.

He picked the red from a pocket and put it at one end. “General Pollock,” he said.

And while his eyes looted the room for troops, rocks, Khyberees, the Fort of Au Musjid, and a yet unbroken Jellalabad, he said, “Fifth of April, eighteen forty-two, you worn em?”

“Almost, sir,” Boy said. “Just one month later.”

“That’s me boy.” The general beamed. “Speak my language—wha! Yes, ’n turls.”

***

Caspar did not love Linny Sherringham. At least, if what he had felt for Mary Coen had been love (and it had certainly been powerful enough to make him do many things contrary to his real nature), he was not in love with Linny. But they got on splendidly together, like people who had known each other a long time. He remembered Mary’s words, about wishing to marry someone she liked rather than someone she loved—“Why do we fret over love when liking’s so pleasant?” As his friendship with Linny ripened, he came to understand more and more what Mary meant.

Also—he could not ignore it—a marriage between himself and the eldest Sherringham girl would immeasurably strengthen his claim to part of the Stevenson business; especially his claim to the only part he really wanted—the iron and steel works. If he could control such works in Wales and the northeast, at Stevenstown, sheer geography would do half his selling for him.

But, and here was the core of his dilemma, he could not honourably court Miss Sherringham until he had at least a nod and a wink that the Stevenstown steelworks would come his way; and he could not—dared not—approach Lord Stevenson until he could be quite sure of bringing in the prize of Miss Sherringham. In a way he wished he did love her; then he would have no qualms about courting her, and to hell with the consequences.

If he had been just a little more adept at reading the social signs, he would have been that necessary bit bolder. For Aunt Lascelles was bending all the rules of chaperonage as far as they would go without actually breaking to ensure that her linnet came back with at least one Stevenson head in her trophy bag. If he had been less secretive, he would have told all to Winifred or his mother, either of whom would have assured him at once that he could count on at least one prong of his pincer attack on Stevenson’s. But whenever they approached the subject with him, he was so evasive and casual that they would not risk the disloyalty such assurances entailed.

He did not even tell Linny enough to settle her mind. All he could say was that he was having problems reconciling his father’s wishes and his own. “If I might go into Stevenson’s,” he said, “instead of the army, I would be able to make so many other firm arrangements.” With that one enigmatic sentence, and a discreet squeeze of the arm as he spoke the word “firm,” she had to be content.

“I think I never shall get to hear rule forty, Mr. Stevenson,” she said with a sigh.

“But I promise you, Miss Sherringham, the very day—the very hour—I hear that my future and Stevenson’s are to be linked, you shall hear rule forty. I shall shout it to you from the top of Sherringham’s tallest chimney.”

She laughed. “You promise?”

“My most solemn promise.”

These hints seemed clear and satisfactory at the time. But when she retailed them to her parents—without the firm sincerity of his eyes to buoy them up—they seemed much thinner and more obscure.

***

“Poor John,” Nora said in a voice as devoid of commiseration as she could make it. “Our sons seem to have misread their parts completely.”

He had been complaining to her that Young John seemed to be spending all his time with the general, leaving Caspar to squire the Sherringham girl. And tomorrow they would all be gone.

Nora turned out the lamp on her bedside table. The other lamp still burned, on what would have been John’s side of the bed if he still shared it with her.

“Even worse,” he said, “all four of them seem to enjoy it thoroughly.”

“So there’s no one traitor! No one to blame.”

“Oh,” he said bitterly, “I know who to blame. The tradition of disobedience in this family is both ancient and deep.”

“Disobedience to custom?” she asked. “Or to vows?”

The look on his face was so ambiguous, especially with the light behind him, that she could not tell if he was working up to a rebuke of her or a confession. She wanted neither—at least, she wanted to be independently sure of The Bitch’s departure first. And even then he’d have some sentence left to serve. She turned her back on him.

His hand lifted the blanket.

“Save it,” she snapped without moving. “You never know when you might need it.”

Normally he would have walked off to the bed in his dressing room, exasperated at her coldness. It was a measure now of his anxiety that he overlooked her rebuff and stayed. “Those two boys,” he said. “They were quite ready to defy me, you know.”

“Those two what?”

He gave a puzzled snort. “They are hardly men.”

She turned to him then, annoyed she had put out her lamp, leaving his face in darkness, hers in the light. “I thought I had grown weary of saying it, weary of warning you. I thought you had grown weary of listening. Those two ‘boys’—or men—will not fit into your moulds. Young John is not by temperament or natural aptitude fitted for your shoes.”

He cut in as she drew breath. “He will overcome both those drawbacks—if they exist, which has yet to be shown.”

“And Caspar,” she went on, unheeding, “has been fitted to take your place for the last four years. In fact, he’d run tight circles around you now.”

She saw his fists clench but, without seeing his face, she felt lost. Was she trying to make him angry? Or listen to reason? Was he even in a mood to listen?

“Pure imagination,” he said. He sounded angry, but under control. More cold, really. “I bring it up merely to tell you that I intend to teach them both a lesson in obedience. I will not tolerate this open opposition from them. I will not tolerate opposition of any kind. And I mean you, especially, to heed this. Young John will leave this week for the Lake District. Caspar will not be going back to Cambridge; he will have until March to find himself a regiment—or I shall find one for him. And I have written to Miss Beale informing her that Winifred’s honorary services are no longer available. Winifred is to marry.” He looked at her expressionless face. “Well?”

“Well what?” she asked.

Now he was silent.

She continued: “You said I was to heed. I am heeding. You want me to discuss it, too? You want to hear what an utter, pig-headed fool you are being?”

He stood abruptly. “Not really, thank you.” He walked toward his dressing room. “But you keep out of it,” he warned.

“Or what, John? Will you black my eyes? Will you smash my teeth down my throat? What other sanctions have you left, John? You’ve withdrawn everything else.”

“I…?” he choked. “
I’ve
withdrawn?”

She faced him calmly. “Now you heed this,” she said. “Until now I have played the very minimum part necessary to maintain the affections of a family whose true needs and interests you no longer care about. But if you persist in this headstrong and utterly destructive course, you will find me at every turn—sleeves rolled up and all.”

He slammed his door behind him—and at once opened it again. “You will come off worst,” he warned.

Five minutes later she had awakened Caspar. She talked with him for about twenty minutes.

***

Next day, on their way back from the station, where they had seen off their guests, Caspar singled out Winifred and spoke to her all the way home. After lunch, John called them all into the library. Caspar and Winifred took care not to sit facing squarely on to him; if anything, they formed a group like a round committee.

“We’ll wait for your mother,” John said.

The long case clock had a slow, deep, oily tick.

Nora came in with a piece of needlework—something they had not seen in her hands for years. Only John, who had seen so little of her anyway, found it unsurprising.

“Before you begin, Father,” Caspar said, “I feel I would like to…”

“Before you begin, sir,” John barked, not wanting to lose the initiative, “you will hear me out. This interruption of yours is quite characteristic of the insubordination you have all shown to me lately.”

“Quite,” Caspar said.

“And I have…” Winifred began.

“Will you keep quiet!” John roared. “You listen to nothing.”

“I only want to…” Caspar was all conciliation.

“Quiet!”

“But, Papa, dearest…” Winifred was all sweetness and admiration

“No! No! No! You are here to listen. You are not here to speak. We’ve all heard quite enough of your wants, your aspirations, your hopes. Now you will listen to what has been decided. But first I want to say that your behaviour the other day, young John and Caspar, was utterly reprehensible. Whatever long-past grudge you held against Mr. Blenkinsop, it was appalling manners to impugn his honour to me while he was my guest. The manners of guttersnipes.” He looked at Caspar. “I trust you now agree?” he asked.

“I had hoped that topic was closed, guvnor,” Caspar answered.

“I told you upon what condition I would consider it closed.”

For a while father and son stared at each other. “Well?” John prompted.

“We cannot reopen the topic, sir, without discussing Blenkinsop’s character. And I will not do that with ladies in the room.”

“So!” John said grimly. “You persist! You have not withdrawn your slur against my guest one whit.”

“It seems, sir, that we both persist. You persist in believing me to be a liar without even inquiring as to…”

“Enough!” John said. “I have heard enough. It was my intention to give you two months to find a regiment. I now give you two weeks.”

“Give me two hours—it makes no difference. I shall never join the service.”

“Caspar!” Nora warned.

“It’s no good, mater. It’s already too fierce,” he answered, as much as to say
Keep quiet now.

John looked threateningly at Nora. “I told you,” he said before turning back to Caspar. “If I say you will join the Swiss navy, sir, then you will join the Swiss navy,” he said.

Caspar rose to go, calm as an ice cellar. “By your leave,” he said.

“No, sir,” John barked. “You do not have my leave. And you, miss”—he rounded on Winifred—“are not to return to Cheltenham. I have already informed your Miss Beale that your honorary services are no longer available…”

“I wish to found my own school,” Winifred said quickly.

“You…” John began.

“But I am not prepared to discuss it in this atmosphere of rancour.”

“Not prepared? Not
prepared
!”
John shouted her down. “You do not seem to be aware, young madam—nor you, sir”—he turned back to Caspar—“that all your fine airs and graces—I want, I wish, I propose—all this grandeur is funded by generous allowances from me. You, young man, will find all your tradesmen’s accounts are closed two weeks from today—and will remain so until you join your regiment. Your allowance will also cease, upon the same terms.” He paused, seeing that Caspar was shaking his head with a sort of sad gravity.

“Look, guvnor, let’s try at least to discuss this calmly. Eh?”

John gave the faintest, wariest of nods, banking his anger for the moment. “I won’t be talked out of it,” he warned.

“You are saying, in effect, that you will pay me to join the colours but not to do anything else?”

“Your allowance, and all other privileges, will cease unless you do my will.”

“And in no circumstances will you entertain this idea of my taking over even part of the firm?”

“That does not even arise.”

“Because it is to go to Boy?”

“May I ask the purpose of these rather fruitless…”

“Boy,” Caspar interrupted, turning to his brother, “suppose someone came to you and told you he could land a tasty great contract for Stevenson’s provided you greased his palm with a bribe?”