Lessons in Power (4 page)
“Like a tiger skin? Or a bearskin?” The pun wasn’t lost on Jonty’s audience. “You know, after those
fifteen awful months when I was at school I had no inclination towards anything of that nature for years and years. Even just on my own. Wasn’t even capable of it—psychologically impotent, clever people
would have termed me—not until I had the feelings stirred again. I’m sorry that wasn’t with you, as well.”
“So am I, as you know.” The fire crackled, flames dancing, lighting up their faces. Sadder faces than had been seen in the cottage this last few weeks. “Jonty, I must know this.” Orlando’s eyes shone like coals in the reflected firelight. “Are you grateful to whoever murdered Jardine? Wouldn’t you want to shake his hand rather than send him to the gallows?”
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“I honestly don’t know. I can tell myself we’re serving justice and that I don’t want Matthew’s friend unfairly convicted. But when it comes to it—when we have the man or woman in our grasp—I have no
idea how I’ll react. It’s frightening, although it still has to be done and I’ll not shirk my duty.”
“Good man.” Orlando clapped his shoulder. “My Jonty.”
“Indeed I am, old thing. Yours forever if you’ll have me.”
“Do you have any doubt on that score?”
“No. Only the once, when I made such a fool of myself after you lost your memory.” Jonty caressed
his lover’s hands, his long, nimble-fingered, mathematician’s hands, as adept with a slide rule or a set of Napier’s bones as with a tender touch. “I thought about running away, although I doubt I’d have got further than London. Mama would have dragged me back here and made me apologise to both you and Dr. Peters
for being a silly boy.” Jonty smiled and kissed his friend’s knuckles. “Made for each other, you know. It would take a lot more than a lovers’ tiff to split us up.”
Sunday morning, Jonty grabbed the last piece of toast out of the rack, then ruffled his lover’s hair. “I want to go to the chapel and talk to God, Orlando. I know He sent me you to talk to, for which I am
eternally grateful, but this morning it has to be just me and Him.”
“I understand.” Orlando smiled as he spoke, although he had no idea what his lover meant.
The chapel was warm and inviting. Lumley, the chaplain, insisted it should be made as welcoming as
possible—people came to God’s house for comfort, not to be put off by cold stone and a forbidding
atmosphere. The early communion had finished and Matins was some way ahead, so Jonty could find a
comfortable seat and start to think. He said the Our Father, stumbling as always over the as-we-forgive-those-who-trespass-against-us
bit, then said a few silent prayers to which only his maker was privy.
His mind raced. Lord Christopher Jardine, first rapist. The Honourable Timothy Taylor, second rapist.
Mr. Rhodes (he must have a first name, God would know), agent provocateur, peeping Tom, procurer of
unwilling parties. All three of them first-class bastards. Only Jonty, the men themselves, and the Almighty knew exactly what had gone on and who had been involved. Jardine, Taylor, Rhodes—names which
Richard Stewart, Jonty’s father, would have loved to possess. Names that Mrs. Stewart would have given her fortune to know, which Orlando would have sacrificed his right arm for. Did those parties want the list so they could bring the guilty to justice, or so they could take an appropriate revenge? Jonty shuddered to think.
And now the first abuser was dead, murdered by a vicious series of blows, yet Jonty didn’t know how
he felt about it. By rights he should be pleased that the swine had got what he deserved, but the hands which did the deed were unknown. It wasn’t as if a Stewart or any close friend had committed the act.
Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord
, so perhaps He had used his own agent? But no angel’s fiery sword had 20
Lessons in Power
struck down Jardine—the man had suffered at a pair of all-too-human hands. Part of Jonty felt cheated that his tormentor had never had to face up to his crime, although that had always been his own decision. What point would justice have been if it came at the cost of shame and scandal to the Stewarts?
And I thought I was healed.
That was a lie. On bad days, the events still buzzed around Jonty’s brain; they sounded in his ears like a heartbeat when he lay down to sleep, screeching in his ears like an alarm when he awoke.
He knew he’d moved on from the broken and bruised Jonty Stewart who’d come to St. Bride’s at
eighteen being afraid of any contact more intimate than holding hands or the rough and tumble of the rugby pitch. It had taken a long time to reawaken physical desire, but a medical student called Richard Marsters had been patient and kind, full of tenderness. If all he asked was to make love in the dark, then Jonty was happy to oblige, no matter how much he disliked the fact—it had been a small price to pay for getting his life back again.
On those unlit, tender nights there’d been one or two times when Jonty had broken off gasping and
crying, imagining he was undergoing his torture again. Richard had always comforted him, even if he
couldn’t understand. Even if he couldn’t return love. He’d seen Jonty as a victim to be tended and looked after, rather than a flesh-and-blood lover to be nurtured, challenged and delighted. At the time it had been enough.
With Orlando things were different. Jonty had been heartbroken at losing his first love, but he hadn’t entirely lost his libido, and when at last he found someone who touched his heart again, he’d been able to take the lead, happy to fall into a physical relationship. He wasn’t the squirming boy of eighteen—he was a red-blooded male again and in need of a lover. With Orlando he’d been given happiness such as few men are blessed with. Now he could go for a long time without thinking of cold thundery nights at school, although he’d never really forgotten or forgiven.
There remained his distress when it thundered and, while he’d never felt that he was back with his
rapists when making love with Orlando, he hadn’t been able to put the experiences behind him. When
things got “too close”, as he called it, like when he was listening to another victim’s sad story of his own schoolboy years or when someone had spoken of the sullying of the innocent, he felt acutely aware of
memories. Then he could almost think himself back in those cold little rooms, having his innocence
wrested from him under extreme duress.
You were never healed, Jonty
; he was more than aware of that now. Until he could forgive his
predators or confront them—or both—he would find no resolution. He shut his eyes and tried to organise his troubled thoughts into something like a prayer.
I want to get well again, Lord. I know I’m supposed to
forgive those who sin against me yet it feels impossible. I know all things are possible for you but I’m only
mortal. Please help me.
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Unable to concentrate on his prayers and powerless to find any degree of peace, Jonty opened his
eyes. The light playing through the stained glass formed jewelled patterns on the stone flags, bounced off the gleaming brass and illuminated the motes of dust, which danced in the air like Thomas Aquinas’s
angels.
He must have been transfixed, because the chaplain entered and found him there unmoving, blank, as
Orlando had often found him when there were thunderstorms about.
“Dr. Stewart, you’re early for Matins.” The chaplain touched his shoulder. “Dr. Stewart.”
“I’m so sorry.” Jonty shook off his stupor, came back to the land of the living again. “I was miles
away.”
I was years away.
“I’d better go home and meet Dr. Coppersmith, he’ll be wondering where on earth I’ve got to.”
Back in that little cold room again.
“We’ll be down for evensong. Thank you for being so kind.”
“My pleasure, that’s what I’m here for. Anytime you need to find some peace and quiet, feel free to
come here.”
Jonty nodded. “I will.” But it was peace and quiet in his own heart that he needed so much and
seemed so incapable of finding, even in his Father’s house.
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Chapter Three
There were only two things Jonty referred to which made Orlando feel uncomfortable, although
neither was what had happened at his school. That just made Orlando angry and inclined to fantasise about ice-picks and backs of skulls.
One of the two offensive topics was Richard Marsters. Try as he might, Orlando couldn’t rid himself
of the jealousy he felt for this man.
He
should have been Jonty’s first lover, if there was any fairness in the world. No one else should have been willingly given the privilege of intimacy with that sacred flesh, no other lips or tongue or fingers should have felt, tasted or caressed. But it couldn’t be cured so it had to be endured. Under protest.
The other thing was when Jonty referred to how God seemed to speak to him. “Oh, not as a voice in
my head, Orlando, although I do get the distinct impression sometimes that He’s telling me ‘Don’t be such a silly sod, Stewart.’ The Almighty doesn’t mince His words, you know. It’s more like a sudden conviction that I must do something, even if I don’t want to do it, or the knowledge that something is absolutely right or wrong.”
Orlando awaited Jonty’s return from Bride’s convinced that he’d be made privy to some revelation his
friend had received while sitting in the chapel. As it turned out, he was wrong. Jonty seemed pensive when he came back—out of character, but whatever was going on in his noddle stayed there.
They read the papers, enjoyed their lunch, then Jonty suggested that, instead of curling up on the sofa together and snoozing, they should take a brisk and bracing walk. It was dry but overcast and the air was chilling, the layers they’d swathed themselves in proving necessary.
Trying to find early signs of spring proved difficult and conversation waned until Jonty stopped to
take a huge breath, watching his exhalation make little clouds in the air as if he were taking a cigar. “I’ve decided that I can’t run away from it anymore.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never known you to run from anything. Being too brave
by half is your problem.”
Jonty smiled and squeezed his lover’s arm. “That sounds like me at scrum half, I’ll grant you, but I’m talking about what happened at school. I thought if I told myself enough times that I was cured then it would happen, as if repeating something a sufficient amount made it true. Except I can’t be cured, not if I still get into a state when there’s a storm and certainly not if I can still feel so angry at such a remove. I’m quite happy to find out who killed Jardine and I hope I’ll feel no more awkward about it than I have with
Charlie Cochrane
our other cases. But the resentment’s crippling me. I’m angry about Jardine being dead because I don’t have the opportunity anymore of beating the living daylights out of him.”
Orlando wished they’d stayed at home—not so much because he hated these revelations, it was
simple regret they’d not been divulged on the sofa, where he could have held Jonty, petted him and tried to make it better.
“I can’t go on getting so wound up over it and now I’m sure about what I have to do. Once we’ve
investigated this case, we’re going to find those other two bastards and I’m going to confront them. I have no idea what I’m going to say or do but I have to trust that
He
and you will be there to help me.” Jonty smiled, looking quite beatific.
It struck Orlando how much worry had been weighing on his lover, how strained and drawn he’d been
looking these last two days. This face, relieved of some of the anxiety, was more like his old self.
“Whatever you feel you must do, I’ll be there at your side. Even if we both end up in the dock.”
Orlando grinned—they both began to laugh, slapping each other’s backs in as clear a gesture of love and mutual support as they could risk out on the open road on a Sunday afternoon.
“Do you know, I’m such an idiot. I keep forgetting how lucky I am to have met you and for you to
have been daft enough to fall in love with me. We’re bound together, Dr. Coppersmith, as surely as if we had taken vows. There should be no secrets any more. I’ve been a fool not to tell you all.”
“If there’s more you want to say, Dr. Stewart, might I suggest that we take ourselves home and
discuss it at the fireside over a full pot of tea? We’ll tell Mrs. Ward to shun the silver service for once.”
Mrs. Ward wasn’t happy to use Orlando’s old brown teapot on a Sunday afternoon, but she
succumbed when they agreed to sample her latest batch of butterfly cakes. They snuggled onto the sofa, discarding their shoes and wedging their cold feet under each others’ bottoms.
Orlando let the tea and cakes work their magic on his lover’s reservations. If he was quiet and
sensible, then Jonty would at last pour out all the facts about the days of torment at school. Orlando wanted the names of both perpetrators and the housemaster who had egged them on, so that at the very least he could curse them, swearing at their memory.
“Christopher Jardine was too fond of power and the exercise of it,” Jonty began quite unexpectedly,
“and Mr. Rhodes—I really don’t know his first name, Orlando—saw him as just the sort of arrogant bastard who’d serve his purposes. I suspect that I was just one of a string of boys in St. Vincent house who’d suffered under the auspices of our ‘beloved’ housemaster. I’m not sure he could have gone without his kicks for too long. Whoever went before me, I don’t know, although there was a story that two years after Rhodes came to the school a young lad in St. Vincent’s had died in a tragic accident, which someone
