Fragile Blossoms (27 page)

‘When it’s all over?’

Freddie doesn’t know what that means. Alone, he sits in the big brown room with the big brown desk and books on the shelves and is afraid. It is such a big room for such a small boy. Then the door opens and Papa comes in. He leads a lady by the hand, a young lady in a white dress. Freddie sees them come in then loses them, the screen between him and Papa. He sits in this dream feeling lonely and wishing he had Paul Revere to hug, the grey knitted cat with a top-hat made of stars that his sister sent from America,. He wanted to bring Paul Revere to the Library but Nanny said no, Papa wouldn’t like it.

Noises come from behind the screen, squishing sounds like the springs of the nursery sofa going up and down. Papa is whispering and the lady is weeping. Freddie doesn’t like to hear it. The noises go on and on as if they are never to stop and the whispering gets louder. Freddie sticks his fingers in his ears and thinks he’s been here in this room sitting on this stool before and there was the fire screen and another lady who wept.

He seems to know the horror will not last, that Nanny Goldsmith will take him back to the nursery. They will not speak, she will ask no questions and he’ll tell no lies. There will be an examination of his body. She will remove his clothes and examine every nook and crevice. She’ll find nothing because as with the Big Question there’s nothing to see. Papa doesn’t touch him in a wrong way, although hands have pulled and fingers have poked and a child has wept, but there’s not a mark on Freddie’s body. Any bruising he has is marked on his soul.

The noise behind the screen is getting louder and there’s the sound of a boot stamping the floor. ‘Open the door, little girl!’ Papa is shouting. ‘Open the door and let Papa in!’ Freddie starts to cry. He dreads something awful will happen, a thing so ugly and sad he’ll never be able to forget. He thinks the fire screen will fall and the hunting scene, the pink-coated riders and their horses, will be smashed to pieces and he will know who Papa hurts.

Someone once said, ‘what the eyes don’t see the heart cannot grieve over.’

Freddie grieves because even without seeing he knows what’s happening on the other side of the screen. He knows the little girl is a servant who clears fire-grates in the morning. She wears a white apron and her black stockings are wrinkled and skin top of her stockings is very white. He sees Papa hunched over as a big black crow and grieves because Papa knows his little boy is on the other side of the screen. Papa knows because he brought him here and will bring him again. Papa likes that his little son can hear the squishing and weeping. There’ll be another girl just as young and just as frightened, and eventually the screen will fall, and Freddie will see who it is and he’ll scream and scream...!

Luke heard the scream through his own dream. Unable to stay awake he’d slept where he sat, his face squashed among the papers ink giving him an extra eyebrow. In his dream Luke was with his father. A storm was coming, the sky over the Brenta peaks black. They discuss the vines and if the rain is heavy the land will slip. The harvest is small this season and yet rich, it doesn’t want spoiling. Luke and his father board the cart with shovels. They go to pitch a gulley above the vines to siphon silt away. They aren’t worried. It’s been done before. They are happy, there will be a gathering this evening, a celebration with friends from across the valley. Luke’s wife walks alongside the wagon her hand reaching up to his. He bends to kiss her. She tastes of wild strawberries and baby milk. She says take care. She says she needs him with her not scattered all over the mountain. A child is crying somewhere, the sound echoing about the mountain. Then the crying becomes a scream and his wife breaks away. He tries to hold her and to tell her it’s not their son, she needn’t worry, but she’s gone, skirts fluttering, and the scream is getting louder.

It is Freddie screaming.

‘Christ’s sake!’

Luke ran up the stairs. Mouth wide open and eyes staring Freddie sits up in the bed. ‘Hey!’ Luke took him by the shoulder. ‘Wake up!’

Snap! Freddie was awake.

Luke’s ears are ringing from the scream. ‘God, Freddie, what’s all that about?’

Eyes and brain locked into another time Freddie can’t speak.

‘Hey, come on old chap!’ Luke snapped his fingers. ‘Why the racket, is somebody trying to kill you?’

‘Yes.’ Freddie nodded. ‘And I’m not sure he didn’t succeed.’

It took a while to calm down and even then tears were only below the surface. ‘So who was trying to kill you?’

‘My father, George Reginald Stewart Baines-Carrington, QC, the great man himself, barrister at Inns of Court fighting for justice and all that is right and good, a respected man, a knight of the realm and friend of Her Majesty.’

‘What about him?’

‘He is a terrible man. We were all afraid of him servants and family alike. Nowadays he’s more insect than man but still Iphigenia Carrington, my poor sad mother, is so afraid of what he might do she bolts her door at night. Not to keep him away! Oh no! She’s no fear of that. Mater’s old. George likes his flesh young and juicy.’

‘My God! Are you saying he...he hurt you?’

‘Yes he hurt me but not the way you think. He never laid a finger on me, not then and not since. It’s girls for George, little girls, young and timid, servants mostly whose parents are tied to the land so nobody dare complain. He took my sister from me. The only reason Evie got married was to get away. She went to the States and left me behind. She says I take after him, son and heir to the Charlecourt rapist. And she’s right, witness two innocent souls in a grave not far from here.’

‘She’s not right!’ Luke sat beside him. ‘That was your father not you. You didn’t rape Susan. It was an agreed thing.’

‘It wasn’t agreed! A servant working for a living and me her mistresses’ brother, how could she not agree? Evie is right I am like my father except I have darker perversions, I’m queer as well as a brute.’

Head in his hands Freddie began to weep great gusting sobs. ‘Such a man! Sir George liked to bring girls down the back stairs to the library, a solemn place, difficult to fight in there with pictures of great men staring down. Who can refuse a man like that in his private domain? Ten or twelve years of age, young and preferably pretty, he raped them and he made sure I knew. Young as I was he’d bring me to watch, or rather Nanny would bring me. I was a member of the audience but not up front in the expensive seats hidden away behind a screen. I couldn’t see what went on. I wasn’t meant to. I was meant to hear and imagine and to be afraid of the cryin’ and the whisperin’, a dirty little boy spyin’ on a dirty old man.’

‘No Freddie!’ Luke took him in his arms and rocked him. ‘Not a dirty little boy, a child at the mercy of a beast.’

‘Yes for all I know still a beast! He’s crippled with arthritis now and not able to get about but the memory is there. That stool and that screen! When he dies I shall burn them. I’ll set fire to them and him a wretched Guy Faulkes perched on top. It’s a shame Nanny won’t be there to join me.’

‘Did she know what was going on?’

‘She did. It was she who wrote to Sidney but whatever she wrote was more a guess because, bless her, she would strip my clothes and examine me to make sure it wasn’t me raped. Sidney fetched me away because he thought I was bein’ molested. I was but not how he thought. Poor Sid and poor Nanny! Be good she would say and I’ll fetch you when it’s all over.’

Luke shook his head. ‘Monsters are everywhere.’

‘They are. For years I tried kiddin’ myself it was a dream but in my heart I knew it was more. I pushed it away until the thing with Bella then I couldn’t push anymore. Tonight the séance, the singin’ and all, I thought I’d die. Then Evie said that and I saw myself a twisted creature not fit to live, Freddie Carrington, the queer who hangs about street corners, hands in his pockets, lookin’ to suck a man’s cock. My father made me so.’

‘Did he make you so?’

‘It must be! All that cryin’ and screamin’, and they did scream, the little girls, it has to be that. Why else would I be this way about women, that I wouldn’t want sex with them at any price?’

‘Maybe because you are a bugger.’

‘What!’

‘I said maybe because you are a bugger. Your father is the worst of men, to call him beast is to malign other decent creatures. I am not surprised by your childhood. Shocked yes but not surprised. I always knew there was something. Children suffer and pass their sufferings on. But why should it be that way with you. Why should you want as you say to suck a man’s cock because your father abused women? It doesn’t make sense. If the thought of loving a woman is unnatural to you might it not be because you prefer men?’

‘It’s not a case of prefer, loving a woman just doesn’t come into it.’

‘There you are then. I don’t know why you feel that way, a bugger I mean, it’s beyond my understanding. But I don’t see you forced to it. More likely what you saw and heard as a child helped make up your mind. To love someone, man or woman, to want to hold and kiss them is natural. My mother says love begets love. She says nothing about hate begetting love. Perhaps I don’t know the world for what it is but I do know Freddie Carrington and you are not a brute. I think it best for your peace of mind you regard your passion for men as natural and not the result of a crazy mind.’

‘You said we were crazy, me and Evie.’

‘And so you are! You’re spoilt brats throwing your toys about but you don’t rape children, Freddie, and your sister doesn’t set fire to kittens. You’ve been abused, the abuse shows, but it doesn’t make you a pansy. You love men and want to make love to them. Don’t make it more of a curse than it is.’

Freddie wiped his nose on his sleeve. ‘I want to make love to you, Luke Roberts, and have from the moment we met. Do you know that?’

‘Yes I do know but that’s not who I am. Right now I am too weary to do anything but sleep. So move over!’ He lay down beside Freddie.’ Accept it for what it is and for Christ’s sake let us both get some rest.’

Early next morning they called in at the Lord Nelson. Luke was hoping to catch the express to London but needed to talk with Nan.

‘What d’you mean you were supposed to stay at the Swan?’ said Nan.

‘We were booked in last night. It was closer to Long Melford for Lady Carrington and her party.’

‘Lady Carrington and party!’ Nan blew out her lips. ‘Don’t you mean Lady Carrington and her seducing rogue of a brother and their plumber hanger-on, her ladyship’s bit of rough?’

‘If by bit of rough you’re referring to me, mother, I didn’t stay at the Swan. I slept at my own place last night. And if by seducing rogue you’re meaning the Honourable Freddie I beg you to remember he’s but a couple of walls away. Keep your voice down! I wouldn’t want him to hear you refer to him so.’

‘Why when by all accounts I’d be telling the truth. There’s talk about him and poor Susan Dudley, how he did the dirty deed and then abandoned her.’

‘There’s always talk in Bakers End. They talk sooner than live. Dear suffering Christ! Is this how it’s going to be all my life?’ Luke stretched his hands up to the ceiling. ‘How long must I endure this place?’

Nan slapped him, and then drew back her hand and slapped him again. ‘Don’t you dare use language like that in my house! I don’t know what you’re used to in London but you’ll not take the Lord’s Name in vain in the Nelson, not while I draw breath. You may be my son and think you’re entitled to come and go as you please but let me tell you this is my house, mine and Albert’s, and while you are in it you’ll treat it and us with respect. This house has served you well as have I your mother. We deserve no less.’

‘No more you do.’ Luke pulled his mother close. ‘I’m sorry. That was wrong of me. I’ve had a bad couple of days. I’ve learned things about myself I didn’t like and it’s shaken me. I’ve lost my way, Nan, and I need to get back, not that that is any excuse for being a poor son. You deserve better.’

‘No!’ Nan kissed him. ‘You’re a good son, the best. You’ve always been here for me and Albert, always good and true. But you’re right. You have lost your way.’

‘Yes and as soon as I’m done here I’m bent on getting it back. I need the loan of the Snug for a couple of hours. Freddie needs to speak with Julianna. I did think to bring him to her cottage but know it a bad idea. I needed a place where they wouldn’t be interrupted and where Julianna would be among friends. That is here, isn’t it, Nan, among friends?’

‘It is!’ Nan sniffed away tears. ‘You’re among friends and if need be, you trying to help him, the Carrington lad is welcome. Have you spoken with Anna?’

‘I sent a note and received a reply saying she’ll wait Freddie’s invitation. The way he is cut to pieces I’m not sure it will help either. But I can’t override his needs. I put on the note to come if he calls, if he doesn’t to hold back.’

‘That’s an odd message.’

‘Maybe but her reply suggests she understands. She writes she’ll be home after the morning service. He need only send a note and she’ll come.’

‘Well I think that pretty big of her considering what she’s had to put up with. If it were me I’d have sent him packing.’

‘I don’t doubt it. I’d like to stay, Ma, but as you know, Albert already being there, we have the hotel in Harrogate to fix. I am expected first thing Monday. I need to get back to London and pack.’

‘Pack? What does that mean?’

‘Move out.’

‘Out of London?’

‘Yes.’

‘For good?’

‘Yes.’

‘What happens then? Shall you come back to Bakers?’

‘ I have the house on the Common. I could stay there. It depends.’

‘On what?’

‘I don’t know.’

Freddie was sitting in the window seat staring out into road.

Luke came through. ‘Everything alright?’

‘As it can be.’

‘Did you order breakfast?’

‘I’ve ordered. Whether I’ll be able to eat is another thing.’

‘Just take your time. There’s no rush. You have my keys. Once you’ve seen Julianna, if you see her, you can go back to the house and see if light off the Common is as good as you thought. I’m for the nine o clock express. I’ll pass on your messages to Jamieson.’