by Penny Jordan
What was the man trying to suggest? Richard had roared at the headmaster. That his grandson was a weakling?
The man, who had been trying tactfully to explain that for a boy as sensitive and delicate as Justin a robust boarding-school atmosphere, especially one run on the semi-military lines of his establishment—which was favoured by those families who, like Richard Fitton, considered their sons from the day they were born to be destined for the élite regiments of the army, such as the Household Cavalry, the Guards, the Blues and Royals—was not perhaps the best place for him to spend his growing years.
There were other and quite frankly more dubious aspects of his grandson’s personality that the headmaster had wanted to take up with Richard Fitton, but it had only taken a very few minutes in that gentleman’s company for him to realise that to bring up the concern that was at the forefront of his mind would be a sheer waste of time.
The headmaster was not one of the old school, who believed that in allowing his pupils to brutalise one another he was doing them a favour and preparing them for what life would force them to endure sooner or later, but in a school full of boys, crammed together in the particular hothouse atmosphere such an establishment was bound to engender, it was impossible to prevent a certain degree of bullying, and worse… and Justin Fitton was just the kind of delicate, almost effeminate child who would quickly become the victim of both types of vice, which he privately considered the very worst aspects of single-sex private education.
A radical man in many ways, he was campaigning among the board of directors to permit the school to open its doors to girls as well as boys, but so far his campaigning had produced only a hardening of the diehard attitude of its guardians.
Dismissed by Richard Fitton with a curt injunction to ‘toughen the boy up a bit, it will do him good’, the headmaster reflected bitterly as he drove home that the only effect such a regime was likely to have on such a sensitive child was to destroy him completely.
Richard Fitton had two grandsons. The younger was due to join his brother at the beginning of the new autumn term. He could only hope that the younger child was made of hardier stuff than the elder.
During the Easter holidays, when Justin cried out in the night, it was Jake who crawled out of his own bed and crossed the freezing cold, cracked linoleum floor of their shared room on the nursery floor of the old house to comfort him and to whisper to him stoutly, ‘Don’t worry, Justin. I’ll be there soon, and I’ll look after you…’
Now, with only a matter of weeks to go before Justin returned home for the summer holidays, Jake paused outside the drawing-room door.
The car belonged to his aunt’s godson, Noel Davenport-Legh; a young man of whom his grandfather disapproved and treated with the same cursory contempt he dished out to anyone who did not meet his favour.
‘Where is the old boy?’ he heard Noel asking in amusement.
‘He’s gone to Chester… on estate business…’
‘Selling off more land?’ Noel asked knowingly, and outside the door Jake winced… Although there were times when he resented his grandfather, hated him almost for the way he treated Justin, they were linked by a common bond that neither of them wanted to acknowledge… and that bond was their deep atavistic love of their home and land.
Right from the start, Jake and his grandfather had been at loggerheads, too alike to fit in easily with one another. When Jake had constituted himself his brother’s champion, he had set himself on the opposing side to his grandfather…
And it was almost always on Jake that the full brunt of the old man’s irascible temper fell. The loss of his arm during the First World War had left him with a wound that ached and tormented him, especially when the weather was damp, and when autumn came and the mist lay over the Cheshire plain like a thick veil the agony of his aching flesh drove him into furious outbursts of temper which often resulted in Jake’s incurring the older man’s wrath to the point where he would be summoned to the stables to receive the ritual beating which Richard Fitton believed was a necessary part of a boy’s upbringing.
He had received many a beating himself from his father’s hand, and was firmly convinced that it was the only real way to discipline an unruly boy—and Jake was most certainly unruly.
All the more so when Justin was at home, and, since Richard Fitton did not have the insight to realise that the younger boy was simply running interference for the older with his determined, defiant stance against his grandfather’s edicts, it was on Jake’s head, or rather on Jake’s buttocks, that the full weight of their grandfather’s disapproval fell.
Afterwards, when he had stoically endured the humiliating agony of his grandfather’s heavy leather belt and his grandfather’s equally heavy arm, wielding the regulation ‘six of the best’ against his naked flesh, he would be allowed to pull on his clothes and walk, stiff and straight-backed, up to the nursery, where Mrs Finks would be waiting for him, clucking with anxiety and concern as she bathed the afflicted flesh with a stinging concoction of her own design which healed the raw flesh even if it inflicted even more pain in doing so.
Noel Davenport-Legh was descended, like the Fittons, from an ancient Cheshire family, but, unlike Richard Fitton, his grandfather had seen the writing on the wall, and had cheerfully and unapologetically married the daughter of a wealthy Liverpool merchant, thus ensuring that his family would not suffer the financial hardships presently afflicting Fitton Park.
Noel was a cheerful if spoilt young man, genuinely fond of his godmother, who, as he saw it, did not have much of a life, cooped up in a crumbling, decaying house with her irascible and unreasonable father, and two dependent children who were not her own.
Once, long ago, Mary Fitton had been a pretty young woman; he had seen photographs of her with his mother to prove it. But now, while his mother had softened into middle age, cosseted by wealth and the love of her husband and children, Mary Fitton had hardened into it, so that it had cast her into an embittered and resentful mould.
Noel and his mother were possibly the only two people who genuinely cared for her, and she clung to their visits like lifelines in an otherwise viciously unkind sea. She hated her father for the life he made her lead, deprived of the comfort of a husband and family of her own, because he had insisted after his wife’s death that she must take charge of her younger brother’s children.
She didn’t like small children. She never had and she never would, and to add to that she had resented the brothers both inwardly and outwardly because of their dependence upon her… just as she resented the lack of financial independence of her own which made it impossible to break free of her domineering father and his old-fashioned way of life.
From his position outside the door, Jake worryingly heard Noel saying, ‘Well, as far as young Jake is concerned, the army will suit him fine. He’s a real chip off the old block, as tough and hard-headed as the old man himself. But Justin…’
He paused, and there was something about the way he said Justin’s name, something softer and subtly different about the sound of it that made Jake’s stomach roll protestingly and his muscles clench as they always did whenever he sensed that Justin was in danger.
‘The poor kid’s finding school difficult enough. He’ll never make the army—–’
‘He has no choice,’ Mary Fitton interrupted him abruptly. ‘When father goes, the death duties will eat up what’s left of the estate…’ Her voice shook with the bitterness and resentment which had begun to colour so much of her life. ‘There’ll be nothing left… nothing…’
There was silence inside the room, and Jake scuffed the toe of his shoe against the worn floorboards outside it. He didn’t like Noel. There was something about him that made him withdraw from him without knowing what engendered his instinctive withdrawal.
‘Pity you can’t persuade the old man to let young Justin come home. The poor kid hates that damned school…’
‘How do you know?’
Again the sharpness o
f his aunt’s voice fell unpleasantly against Jake’s ears.
‘Oh, didn’t I tell you? I called at the school on the off chance of being allowed to take him out for lunch a few weeks ago. I was in the area, staying with friends… and I remembered how miserable the poor little blighter had been the last time he was home…’
‘You’re too soft with him, Noel,’ Mary Fitton chastised him. ‘Father is right about one thing. Justin is far too sensitive for his own good. He needs toughening up, not spoiling…’
Outside the door, Jake felt his body tighten in anger and frustration. He hated his aunt for what she was saying about his brother. And yet at the same time he felt equally resentful of Noel Davenport-Legh. This perplexed him when he knew that he should feel grateful to him for taking the trouble to spend time with his brother. Something about Noel made him feel uneasy, like the stable cats when he brushed their fur the wrong way. It was an uncomfortable sensation… an uncomfortable awareness, and one that made him cross and worried inside.
Inside the room his aunt was saying brittly, ‘I’d invite you to stay for lunch, but…’
‘No, thanks,’ Noel declined. ‘Ma’s having a dinner party next Saturday. She sent me to tell you that you’re invited.’
His aunt laughed… A strained, high-pitched sound that jarred against Jake’s ear.
‘That’s kind of her, Noel, but please tell her that I won’t be able to accept.’
She had her pride, Mary acknowledged bitterly later as she watched him drive away. Even if she could persuade her father to allow her to accept the invitation, how on earth could she attend a dinner party wearing the one and only evening dress in her wardrobe, a garment which dated back more years than she cared to remember?
Upstairs, from the barred window of the old nursery, Jake watched Noel drive away. He envied him his car, but he knew that that wasn’t why he disliked the man so much. No… his dislike was rooted in the funny, twisting, painful sensation inside him when Noel talked about his brother, and, although he didn’t realise he was doing it, his small fists clenched hard against his side as he watched the Aston Martin drive away.
The world of an all-male boarding school had its own rules and hierarchies, and ordinarily Jake would soon have settled down quite quickly and happily within it. Added to the hardiness he had inherited from his grandfather was a sturdy independence which the deaths of both his parents had fostered, making him one of those rare individuals who genuinely did not feel the need to court the goodwill and approval of his peers, and yet at the same time was not one of nature’s natural outsiders, the race apart who were somehow born knowing that they must march to a different drum.
He was a popular boy who wore his popularity lightly, a boy with a very advanced sense of responsibility twinned with a totally unexpected and deep-running vein of compassion which made Frederick Hesketh feel that he had discovered gold in a totally unexpected source.
At first sight, the headmaster had put Jake in the same mould as his grandfather. Unlike his brother, Jake would settle easily into the life his grandfather had chosen for him, but it was not very long before Frederick Hesketh was obliged to change his mind.
Not only did Jake display outstanding qualities of leadership, he also displayed an amazing sensitivity for the feelings of others… most especially for his older brother.
‘It almost breaks my heart,’ his wife told him sadly one afternoon. ‘Do you think he knows yet… about his brother?’
Frederick Hesketh frowned. Homosexuality among the pupils was one of the more unpleasant aspects of all-male boarding schools, and one he personally was trying to stamp out, not from moral principles, but because he knew that the sexual relationships that sprang up between the boys were often based on cruelty and bullying on the part of the older boy and fear on the part of the younger, who was often, but not necessarily always, terrified into playing his part in the relationship.
It was a very invidious situation, underground and unacknowledged; something that, if acknowledged at all, was described as ‘just a phase’, ‘something he will grow out of’, or as a necessary outlet for the boys’ growing sexual awareness.
But sometimes it would happen that one of the boys would discover that for him homosexuality was not just a passing phase, but that this involvement with his own sex was ultimately to be his way of life, and Frederick Hesketh was almost sure that this was the case with Justin Fitton.
The boy was almost femininely attractive physically, and thus designed by nature to be the focus of his peers’ curiosity and attention… and not just his peers, Frederick acknowledged, frowning as he remembered the man who had visited the school the previous term, claiming that he was in some distant way related to Justin, and insisting on taking him out for the day.
Justin Fitton and his brother were both destined for the army, their grandfather had made that abundantly clear, but Frederick Hesketh knew already that Justin was simply not equipped physically or mentally for the rigours of army life. He was intelligent… they both were… intelligent enough to win a scholarship to Oxford, if he could persuade his grandfather to allow him to accept it. The old man was suspicious of education, and considered that the army taught a man all he needed to know.
If Frederick Hesketh could somehow or other persuade Richard Fitton to allow his older grandson to take an Oxford scholarship, he might be able to buy the boy a little more time in which to learn enough about himself to find a way of convincing his grandfather that he was simply not designed to take on the role the former had planned for him.
It would probably mean sacrificing the younger boy, which was a pity; he was equally intelligent, and equally capable of winning an Oxford scholarship, but he was far more suited to an army career than his elder brother. He wondered how Jake would react when the inevitable happened and he discovered the truth about his brother.
The inevitable happened within six months of Jake’s joining the school. He was, as the headmaster had already observed, keenly intelligent.
The discovery came through the crude taunts of a couple of older boys and, once their meaning had sunk through, it didn’t take Jake long to realise that inwardly he had always known about his brother. It didn’t alter the way he felt about him; if anything he was more protective of him, his instinctive need to protect Justin growing rather than abating.
At home, during the school holidays, he deliberately brought himself to the forefront of his grandfather’s attention, flouting his rules so that the old man was kept too busy chastising him to concern himself overmuch with Justin.
But then, one holiday, for the first time in their lives, the two boys quarrelled. The cause of the quarrel was Noel Davenport-Legh’s frequent visits to the house, visits which inevitably concluded with his making an excuse to be alone with Justin.
The boys were now nine and twelve respectively, and bitterly Jake was forced to acknowledge that his brother was growing away from him.
The years passed; Justin sat and won his Oxford scholarship and reluctantly their grandfather was persuaded to allow him to accept it.
Justin shuddered with relief. He was now a finely drawn, effete young man so different from his younger brother that a stranger would never have known they were related.
Privately Jake acknowledged that he too would have enjoyed the challenge of Oxford. He had a good brain and enjoyed using it; the modern army was not the army his grandfather remembered, and he felt no resentment at Richard Fitton’s insistence that it was to be his career. He already knew that he had a gift for managing men… plus a talent for organisation which would find a natural outlet as an army officer.
After school he would be going on to Sandhurst before joining an élite Guards regiment… his grandfather’s and his grandfather’s before him… and then, the Christmas when Justin was in his third year at Oxford, the blow fell.
Justin came home for Christmas, but not alone. He brought a friend with him, a tall, languid fellow undergraduate whose relationship with
his brother was so obvious that Jake was stunned at Justin’s folly in bringing him home.
The pair were infatuated with one another… and in the ancient rambling house, with its empty rooms and dusty corridors, it was easy for them to find somewhere to be alone. Until the day they went too far…
It was the day of the Boxing Day hunt. Although now well into his eighties, their grandfather had insisted on riding out with the hounds on a borrowed hunter, since he himself could no longer afford the luxury of his own stable. Justin hated hunting and refused point-blank to go with him, and Jake, running his customary interference, drew the old man’s fire by telling him that, while he was totally against the wanton hunting down and killing of an animal for no better reason than that it gave the hunters some kind of barbaric pleasure, he would ride out with him if only to make sure that no accident befell him.
With the young man at just over six feet tall, and with the breadth of chest to match his height, it was no longer possible for the old man to take his belt to his grandson, but his remarks had the desired effect, and Richard Fitton turned his temper away from Justin and on to Jake.
What no one could have foreseen was that the hunt would be cut short by the appearance of a group of hunt saboteurs, who, while trying to protect the hunters’ quarry, managed to lame Richard Fitton’s borrowed hunter to such an extent that Richard had to dismount, and both he and Jake had to leave the others and make their way home.
Naturally the older man was furious at this abrupt end to one of the few pleasures his life still held. The lamed horse had been driven back to the house in a borrowed horsebox, and while Jake, who was driving, stopped the Land Rover, his grandfather got out and went to lead the horse into the stables.
It was the curse his grandfather bellowed that alerted Jake to the fact that something was wrong. He sprinted across the yard and burst into the dilapidated stable to find his grandfather standing over the prone and naked figures of Justin and his lover, his face purple with rage, his hand clenched round the whip he had snatched up in his fury.
