by Jane Lark
No. No!
The doctor reached for William’s wrist. “His heartbeat is very weak.”
No! The denial screamed through Henry as he looked at his mother, who stared at William. She was white.
He went to her and lay his hands on her shoulders offering comfort. She leant back against him slightly, her head resting against his stomach.
Emotion and the weight of responsibility coiled tighter inside him, and around him like a twisting, spiralling snake.
There were no tears in his mother’s eyes and yet she must be longing to cry, she was staying silent and holding her emotion in only so that William would neither hear nor see it if he woke.
“I’ll write a note now,” Henry said in a low voice that ran over gravel in his throat, “and I’ll send my groom back to fetch Papa.”
His mother held one of his hands and looked up at him. “Thank you, I am glad you’re here.”
He smiled, but he could not answer, the snake with its weight of emotion, had wrapped about his neck.
She squeezed his hand a little, then let go and looked back at William.
When Henry left the room every muscle in his body stiffened with the desire to fight this.
No. No! He refused the doctor’s judgement nothing ill would befall William. It would not. It could not.
He found the Matron who administered the hall William slept in. “Have you a quill, ink and paper, I need to send word home to my father.”
“William is not improving?”
The words bit into Henry’s chest, he did not answer, he refused to contemplate them. Yet it was right that his father came. His father should be here.
He scribbled the note with a shaky hand. All it said was, Papa, William is too ill to be moved. Please come immediately. Henry sealed it quickly and walked downstairs to find his groom.
When he handed the letter over he gripped the groom’s shoulder too. “This is extremely urgent, do no delay at all. Deliver it to my father as quickly as you can. He will be at home, in the town house. Hurry please, and have him come back with you at once.” The man bowed his head briefly then turned away.
Henry turned back towards the school building. The pain in his throat which longed to shout or cry had become agony.
Chapter Nineteen
“Miss.”
Susan looked up at the footman standing in the open doorway of her father’s library. She was not trying to paint today, she was reading, she was trying to lose herself in a fictional tale so she need not dwell on her own sorry story. It was proving unsuccessful. “Come in.”
She had turned sideways in her restless fidgeting and draped her legs across the arm of the chair. She sat up and turned around as the footman walked across the room, a slight amused smile on his lips. He held a letter.
Her fingers lifted and pushed her spectacles farther up the bridge of her nose.
His smile implied she’d become a topic of conversation among the servants. But then her returning alone had been an odd thing to do, and Dodds was still in town with her parents so there was no one to silence their gossip.
He held out the letter and bowed his head swiftly. “Miss.”
“Thank you.” She took it, her heart leaping. But then she could see it was not Henry’s writing but Alethea’s.
When the footman left Susan set down her book and opened the letter.
It is terrible news. The words jumped out from the first line.
Had Henry told her?
Susan sat back in the chair as fear gripped in her stomach, and clasped at the breath in her lungs. What had Henry done?
Dearest Susan,
You will not believe what has happened, it is terrible news, poor William has passed away. It was awfully quick, and I am unsure whether that was a blessing or not. The family only had the news yesterday that he had a fever. Henry and his mother went to the school to bring him home but he was too ill to be moved, and at eleven in the evening they sent for Uncle Robert. William died a little after midnight. I am wiping away tears for him as I write. I feel so for Uncle Robert and Aunt Jane. Of course they have gone into mourning.
Sarah wrote to us this morning. They are shutting up their town house and returning home immediately. William is to be buried in Yorkshire. So of course out of respect Papa has said we shall leave town and come home too. We should be with you in three perhaps four days. You must tell the household to expect us, Mama, said.
I cannot write more, we are all in shock.
Your beloved sister,
Alethea
William had died…
Susan stared at the letter, unable to believe it.
He was a boy. How could he have died?
Her heart drained of emotion, all the pain of the last few days fell silent. An acute sense of loneliness struck at her. She wished for someone to hold. Henry… Poor Henry. Poor Uncle Robert and Aunt Jane… How must they feel?
Yesterday she had sulked and moped about the ruins pitying herself and what she’d lost, while Henry had been at William’s bedside watching his brother die. She had not once thought about Alethea’s letter saying that Henry had gone to his brother. She should have spent the hours praying for William, not lamenting over her selfish longing.
William had no more life to live… The words sliced her in two as all the pain now filling her heart and soul was for Uncle Robert, Aunt Jane, Henry, Sarah, Christine and the others.
~
Nausea twisted through Henry’s stomach as he watched William. But it was not William, it was William’s lifeless body. The laughing, energetic boy who Henry had spent half his life impatient with was no longer here. Pain swelled and rocked in Henry’s chest.
His father had arrived too late to say goodbye. He’d looked tortured when Henry had told him the news. He’d walked into the room, dropped to his knees beside the bed and gripped William’s body, his forehead pressing against William’s, and he’d kissed William’s cheek. It had been minutes before he’d let go, even though Henry’s mother had come about the bed and held him.
Henry had stood back and watched, with his hands clasped behind his back, and said nothing, because he’d had no idea what to say, no words would bring William back. Nothing would take away the pain.
Yet what he watched might, a few months ago, have been his parents’ grieving for his loss, if he’d broken his neck with his reckless carriage racing—but better him than William. William had barely begun life.
When his father had risen from his knees, Henry’s mother had wrapped her arms about his waist and his arms had settled on her shoulders as she’d sobbed against his lapel. His father had not arrived in time to say his goodbye to William, but he had, at least, arrived in time to comfort Henry’s mother.
His father had not cried, though, his eyes had been dry, but full of torture, of an agony Henry probably only felt one tenth of.
Henry had left the room, then.
Now he focused on William’s face. He was glad he’d stayed—glad he was the only one who’d watched the last signs of William’s life ebb.
As soon as his parents had left he’d helped dress William in his school uniform. William’s colour had darkened as they’d worked, becoming grey and the muscles in his body had stiffened.
Henry wished this was a dream. It had happened so quickly. He could not believe it was real. But it was.
A desire to hold William, to clasp him firmly, shot through Henry.
His mother had not wished to leave, but when Henry had offered to stay with William to allow his parents to return to London, his father had urged his mother to go. They’d taken his other brothers, Stephen and Gerard, with them. It was not William who needed his parents now it was the others. They had been in shock, caught off guard by the speed of this and Christine and Sarah had still been in the town house.
Before William had died, in his last hour of life, Stephen and Gerard had been sent for and had come into the room and stood by William’s bed to say their farewell. They had t
ried to hold back tears, but it was such a bewildering sight Henry was not surprised when they had failed.
Stephen had told Henry that two days ago they’d been playing cricket with William as though he’d expected William to get up and play then. Gerard had turned and gripped Henry’s waist seeking comfort that none of Henry’s siblings had sought from him before.
His arms had surrounded his brother in a tight embrace. Stephen at sixteen had looked at them, his eyes glittering with moisture, as his expression held hard. The boys had wanted his father, but his father had not been there and so they’d looked to their elder brother because to turn to their mother would have felt weak.
And besides his mother had been crying quietly, she would have been unable to comfort them. Henry had learned a new strength he’d not known was within him in the last few hours, and now he was gripping at it, his fists holding tight. He was being strong for his younger brothers, strong for his mother, and stronger than his father because his father needed to focus on the others—and grieve.
“The coffin is outside, it is ready, my Lord. I am sorry the stairway is too narrow to bring it up.”
Henry looked at the man who stood in the door. The school staff had left him alone in the attic room, out of respect probably. He hoped not out of lack of care. Yet he felt as though the world should be wailing with sadness—not enough fuss was being made. This was his youngest brother—and he’d become nothing but cold flesh and bone. The snake clenched hard around Henry’s chest and tightened about his throat, trying to strangle him.
“Shall I wrap the body in the sheet, sir?”
The body… William! My brother! “No. I will carry him down.”
Henry walked to the side of the bed, as the man held the door open. Henry’s heart pumped hard, pulsing blood into veins which felt dry.
William had grown much taller in the last year. He’d begun to grow from a boy to a youth.
He would not grow now.
Henry leant down and slipped an arm beneath his brother’s knees, and another under William’s shoulders, then gripped his stiff body and lifted his weight, to hold William against his chest.
He was taking on his father’s task. But he was glad his father had not had to do this.
“When will you grow out of this reckless stage? When will you care what others think and feel?” Those were the words his father had yelled at him. The answer was—now. He had known love for a woman and let her go and he’d thought he’d changed then. But now—now he held his dead brother in his arms. Now he knew he had changed.
If William had not looked up to Henry’s reckless ways, perhaps he would not have tried to climb up to his master’s room?
If Henry had paid more attention to his younger brothers, certainly he would not need to feel this intense weight of guilt.
He’d always believed they would be friends when his brothers were older, as he was with his cousins… It had never occurred to him that any of his brothers would not reach maturity.
He wanted William to come back. He would trade anything for it.
William’s body was heavier than Henry had anticipated, but the weight—the burden—was what Henry deserved. He would carry it his whole life. He wished this was him.
William’s forehead rested against Henry’s cheek as Henry carried him towards the narrow door of the small room.
“My Lord.” The school’s master, who had held the door, followed Henry as he walked out and began his descent down the narrow staircase. Henry was careful not to catch William’s feet, or bump his head.
William was so cold—so grey.
Henry had never played with his young brothers. The gap in age had always seemed too wide to him. His cousin Harry was tactile with his young siblings and his nephews and nieces. Henry had never been like that.
It cut into his soul to hold his brother in an embrace when it was too late.
The sense of Gerard’s body close to Henry’s, yesterday, as Gerard’s arms had wrapped about Henry seeking comfort, held tight in Henry’s emotions. He would rather think of William like that, like Gerard, embracing him back, even though William had never done it.
Henry continued walking down the stairs, his pace steady. He would embrace his brothers and sisters frequently now.
He turned the last corner on the narrow staircase and reached the much smarter hallway which led to the main, grand area of the school.
The hallway, and the stairs, were much wider here but still there was no one else around him bar the one master who’d followed him. It was late for a school for boys and the daylight shining into the hall from a window behind him was fading, but the candles had already been lit; they cast pale shadows about Henry as he walked down the last set of stairs.
Henry had sat with his brother the entire day, after his father and mother had returned to town. He had not wished to leave William for a moment. He had a sense that William might be afraid, which was stupid. William was beyond feeling afraid yet Henry was not beyond being able to see his brother alive.
It was as though Henry was back in that damned curricle when he’d taken the turn and there had been no time to adjust his hold, no time to grasp anything as the thing had lifted off the ground on one side, tilting, and then rolled. He’d just been thrown into the air and landed hard. He’d landed harder now.
Wherever the William who’d gone from his body was, Henry hoped that he was happy and did not feel alone or frightened. They had grandparents on the other side, people they had never met, perhaps William was with their grandparents?
When Henry stepped from the last stair into the school’s entrance hall, he expected to see someone. Again there was no one. Perhaps the staff were all busy keeping the other boys out of the way.
Or perhaps now that his father had gone they felt that they’d scraped and commiserated enough. They’d no need to repeat their bowing and scraping to his heir or the dead child. Boys died in this school all the time, diseases spread, accidents happened.
Henry had lost friends when he’d been here. He’d always thought himself invincible, though. That belief had applied to his family too. Never had he thought any of them might be lost.
“Reckless,” he sighed out the word quietly on his breath. The word he’d forever been accused of.
Reckless! It barked at him in his head.
He’d carried the word like a badge of honour. He hated it now. It was a cursed word. It had killed his brother.
The master who’d walked downstairs with Henry moved forward to open the front door.
The undertaker who had come for William waited for Henry outside in the cobbled courtyard in the middle of the school’s ancient buildings illuminated by the eerie light of dusk.
This was sordid. Wrong. It should not be happening.
The open polished ebony coffin rested on a low cart. From the outside it was worth every penny his father had paid, but inside… it was bare wood. But it had been acquired in a hurry. It looked cold. Harsh. Austere.
He was meant to put William down within it.
He wished he had let the man wrap a sheet about William, or that he’d brought down William’s pillow from the bed, or a blanket.
The tears that had been a lump in his throat for hours became pressure at the back of his eyes.
He did not wish to leave William alone, not in a cold wooden box, in the dark.
Yet the boy in his arms was not the living and breathing William who would feel discomfort or terror. He no longer existed.
The urge to hold William in his arms all the way home shot through Henry. That was not possible though.
He walked closer to the cart and leant over to set William down inside the damned stark box. The weight and angle jarred Henry’s lower back. It was a pain he welcomed; he deserved to feel pain. He should be the one in the coffin.
The urge to protect his brother, to keep him safe and comfortable was such a storm within Henry. He began stripping off his coat.
His gaze did not le
ave William’s face.
He lay his coat down on top of William’s chest. The action, the ability to do something for his brother, took a little of the pain from Henry.
He stepped back and two men who Henry had not previously noticed came forward. They moved the lid on to the coffin. Henry’s arms crossed over his chest and he rubbed his arms, but it was not because he was cold even though his arms were now only covered by his cotton shirtsleeves.
He sighed.
The men began hammering nails into the wood and the strikes jolted through Henry. What would his family do without William in the world? What would the world be without William?
He sighed out another breath.
“My Lord.” His father’s groom lifted a hand to direct Henry to the waiting carriage he was to travel in. He did not wish to ride in the carriage, he would prefer to sit in the cart and keep a hand on William’s coffin. He could not walk away from it.
A raindrop fell on Henry’s head. He looked up. The sky had become dark not only from night drawing nearer but due to a dark cloud. Another raindrop fell and hit his shoulder, then the rain began in earnest. He shut his eyes and let it wet his face and his clothing. It helped ease the pain inside him a little.
“My Lord.” Three voices said to him at once, requesting that he climb into the carriage, out of the rain, so that they might be on their way.
He could not stand here forever.
His shirt and his waistcoat now clung to his body they were so damp.
“My Lord.” Henry looked at the groom who encouraged him to go to the carriage again.
He nodded, then walked to the carriage in a daze.
Behind him there was the sound of the backboard banging against the cart, and chains moving to secure it.
He and William had a long journey. His father had asked him to take William home, to Farnborough. Henry was to meet the rest of his family there.
Henry gripped the edge of the carriage by the door and climbed the step, then dropped back into the leather seat and looked out of the window. The groom shut the door and knocked up the step. But they did not then begin to move. The groom lit the oil lanterns on the corners of the carriage. Henry had ordered that they travel night and day.
