The Hidden Blade (3 page)

“Herb, please don’t say things like that.”

“What am I supposed to say, Nigel? It’s been years.
Years
. Maybe you are meant for platonic love, but I am not. If you fear your brother more than you love me, let me know and I—I—” Herb exhaled, a heavy sound that reverberated in the silence of the night. “Then I shan’t come around to bother you anymore.”

Leighton dropped onto his knees, his hands braced against the carpet. Still he felt dizzy, as if he had spun around for a solid five minutes and then come to an abrupt stop. They were not friends, Herb and Father. At least, not just friends, but men who desired to be more to each other—Father wanting it no less than Herb, only that he did not dare.

This was why it had grown tense, Father wishing things would continue as before, and Herb no longer content with that arrangement.

“It is not my brother I fear,” Father pleaded, “but God.”

The desperation in his words made Leighton’s throat close. He did not know everything about the facts of life, but he knew enough to understand that in such matters there could be no compromise. Either Father must hold completely to his position, or he must abandon it just as completely.

“Listen to yourself, Nigel.” Herb sounded as if he were holding back tears. “You don’t fear God. If you did, would you allow your wife to visit her lover with your blessing? You would be on your knees begging her to think of her eternal soul. But not only do you let her go, you let her take Marland to see his natural father.”

Leighton clamped a hand over his heart. Marland wasn’t Father’s son?

Father’s reply was barely audible. “It’s only fair, since I can’t be the husband Anne deserves.”

“But you can be everything to me, Nigel. We can make this arrangement work for all of us.”

“I can’t. If Curtis found out, he would make it unbearable for everyone involved—you, me, Anne,
and
the boys. He would put me into an institution and take our children away from Anne. He would punish you too, Herb, in ways I dare not even imagine.”

“Why do you let him? You are not financially or legally dependent on him. You are your own man.”

“I am not.” Father’s voice quavered, close to cracking. “Before Curtis I will always be a coward. He is the monster of my nightmares, the wrath of an unforgiving God. He is…he is what I deserve for being who I am.”

Leighton had never liked Sir Curtis, but for the first time he became afraid of the man. Father’s fear was as heavy as a London fog, seeping into Leighton’s pores, making him shiver.

There came a long silence. “I am the same as you are,” Herb said, his tone oddly flat. “Do you mean to tell me then that I may never expect any measure of happiness in this life?”

“That wasn’t what I meant at all, Herb. There is nothing I wish more fervently for than your happiness.”

“But you won’t lift a finger for it. You want me to exist in a state of desperate chastity so that you may have your cake and your eternal soul too.”

“Herb—”

“Please say no more,” said Herb. He took several deep breaths. “I’m sorry for being so overwrought. I’m sorry for asking more. You told me from the very beginning that this was how it would be; it was my fault for thinking I could change you.

“I can’t live like this, but I’m sure someday you will find someone who can, someone with a soul far loftier than mine. Convey my regards to Leighton and tell him—” Herb’s voice turned hoarse. “Tell him I will miss him with every fiber of my being.”

Leighton squeezed his eyes shut. No.
No
. Herb could not simply walk out of their lives.

The door of the library opened and closed.

Soft sounds came from below—Father, sobbing.

A long time passed before Leighton realized that he too had tears rolling down his face.

Herb had first visited Starling Manor almost three years ago, on a miserable day for Leighton: Mother had left on yet another trip without him.

She had explained, with a catch in her voice, that the cousin she was visiting was elderly, that they would spend all their time drinking tea and chatting about long-dead relatives, that the only reason Marland was going was because he was too young to be without her.

But Leighton did not find old people boring, a rail journey by itself would be interesting, and she hadn’t considered Marland too young to be without her when she’d gone for three days to a great-aunt’s funeral.

She had not taken Leighton because, in the end, she had not wanted to. And that knowledge had weighed like a millstone upon his chest.

Then Herb had appeared, as if by magic. His first question to Leighton had been, “So, my young friend, what does one do around here for fun?”

And though Herb had been a stranger to Sussex, he had found more fun things to do than Leighton had known existed under the sun. They explored Arundel Castle, almost as old as the Norman conquest of Britain, hunted for fossilized shark teeth at Bracklesham Bay, and sailed a sloop out of Chichester Harbor into the Solent.

Even without venturing afield, Herb made his stays the stuff memories were made of. A game of bowling on the lawn, a ride in the surrounding countryside, a rainy evening spent inside, taking turns reading
Pride and Prejudice
out loud to Father.

Herb’s joie de vivre had infected Father and Leighton. And in a way enfolded them, almost as if in a cocoon, and made it possible for Leighton to ignore certain cold, hard truths about life at Starling Manor.

But now that protection was withdrawn. Now there was nothing between Leighton and everything that frightened him.

Nothing but what a boy two weeks short of eleven could do for himself.

The cottage, with its small sitting room and even smaller bedroom, had been the home of the groundskeeper until a larger place had been built for the man. When Herb began visiting Starling Manor regularly, he had asked for the use of the cottage to stow the portable darkroom he’d lugged down from London, to take photographs of Leighton and Father around the estate.

The pungent odor of silver nitrate hung in the air. There were several developed plates in trays of fixers, the images imprinted on the transparent surfaces just visible. Leighton had taken two photographs of Father and Herb—he had become quite adept at the entire process, from the preparation of the glass plate to the final exposure of the albumen paper—and Herb had taken one of Father and Leighton.

Leighton waited in a corner of the cottage’s sitting room, a lit taper on the table beside him, alternately dozing and starting awake as the mantel clock chimed every half hour.

“Leighton. What are you doing here?”

He opened his eyes. Herb, valise in hand, was crouched before him. Leighton glanced toward the clock: quarter past five.

“I thought you might come here before you go.”

“How do you know that—”

Herb stopped.

An uneasy silence grew between them.

Leighton got up from his chair, went to the linen closet in the bedroom, and brought back a box. In the box was a book of pressed flowers and two geodes, one with a tiny cave of amethyst at its center, another a walnut-size opal of a blue at once milky and shimmery. “I found the geodes in the attic—I think someone brought them back from Australia ages ago. And Mother said we could give the pressed flowers to Miss Cromwell.”

Miss Cromwell was the daughter of Herb’s solicitor. She’d lost her twin sister almost two years ago and had been inconsolable. Herb had decided that the best way to cheer the girl up was to send her a monthly box of interesting gifts. Leighton had loved being involved in the process, collecting all kinds of fun miscellany and then, together with Herb, making the final selections for that particular month’s package.

But there would be no more of that in this future he could not bring himself to think about.

“Do you want me to help you pack up the portable darkroom?” he asked.

Herb shook his head. “No, I’m leaving everything for you—you are already quite the accomplished photographer. Just thought I’d check on the plates before I left, to make sure they were coming along properly.”

Another uneasy silence descended. It seemed to have an outward pressure of its own, pushing Herb and Leighton apart.

“I’ll walk to the railway station with you,” Leighton said.

Herb hesitated. He opened his valise, stowed the geodes and the book of pressed flowers carefully inside, and pulled out one of his daycoats. “Put this on then. It will be chilly outside.”

It
was
chilly outside—frosty, almost. It was the middle of May, but nothing about the morning felt like spring: the damp, raw wind, the shivering branches, the gray gloom that promised a murkiness even after sunrise—Leighton was glad for the sturdiness of his friend’s daycoat. The wool held a hint of Herb’s French shaving soap, a bar of which he had promised Leighton, as soon as it was needed.

The house was five miles from the nearest railway station. They walked silently, the only sounds their boots on the dirt path and the occasional lowing of a cow at early pasture.

The road became busier as they neared the village. After the second time they let a farmer’s milk-laden cart pass, Herb said, “I was going to leave you a note in the cottage, but I take it you already know all is not well.”

Leighton said nothing. He didn’t want to acknowledge anything aloud.

“I—I will be in town for a while. If you’d like to write me, here’s my address.” He handed Leighton a calling card. “Would you allow me to send you a birthday present?”

He had never needed permission to send Leighton birthday presents before. It was as if he had suddenly become a stranger, as if they had never laughed over being caught in a downpour or discussed the possible secret lives of field mice.

Leighton swallowed a lump in his throat. “I will need to ask Father about the present. And about writing letters.”

But they both knew he wouldn’t. It would hurt Father too much.

“Of course. Of course.” Herb smiled weakly—there were dark circles under his eyes. “Maybe I should go abroad for a while—visit India again or something.”

The three of them were going to visit India together when Leighton came of age, to see all the places that Herb had loved, especially the mountains of Kashmir and the beautiful hill station of Darjeeling.

“I’m sure it will be a wonderful trip,” Leighton somehow managed to say.

They fell quiet after that, a silence that lasted until Herb’s train pulled away.

The next evening, Leighton was back at the railway station to meet Mother’s train.

When it became clear that Mother would never take Leighton on her trips, he stopped going to the station to meet her upon her return. But this had upset her, so he had resumed the old habit, parking himself on the platform every month, even on the most bitterly cold days of the year.

Mother’s train puffed into the station. She disembarked promptly, in a traveling dress of burgundy velvet, the cut and the color both striking.

She wore somber colors at home: grays, browns, and other dark, subdued blues. But for her trips she brought out warm, vibrant hues. The realization stole upon Leighton—it was as if she were only completely alive when she boarded the train to see her lover.