“Brother,” she said, her voice almost a squeak. Such intimate talk! “I… had a brother.”
“I did not know that. Was he older than you or younger?”
“Older. Ten years older. In the navy. Lost at sea.”
“I am so sorry. How did it happen?”
“In battle… Cape St Vincent.” His expression was so sympathetic that she could not resist telling the rest of it. “His friends did not see him fall, and his body was never found… many prisoners were taken, so there was some hope for a while… but we have not heard a word in ten years, so we assumed… but I still pray for him, Mr Atherton, that he is safe and well somewhere, perhaps unable to return home. One never knows. Sometimes miracles do happen.”
“Indeed, they do!” he said, the smile suddenly returning in full, as if the clouds had that moment parted. He jumped to his feet. “Thank you for listening to my ramblings, Miss Parish. I am sorry I burdened you with my troubles.”
“No burden, sir.”
“Oh, but it was very wrong of me, and I would be glad if you would forget my ill-humoured words. We shall pretend this conversation never happened.”
She nodded in acquiescence, and with a smile, a quick bow and hasty steps down the aisle, he was gone, leaving her bemused and exhilarated in equal measure.
***
Kentwasuncomfortableafterthis encounter. To be spilling all the family secrets to Miss Parish, of all people! She was such a timid soul, and so innocent, with those great eyes looking up at him as if he were the fount of all wisdom, yet today he felt his unworthiness more than ever. If only he had taken up a career, as he should have done… as he could have done, if he had only had the determination. He was not, perhaps, suited to the army or the church, but a government post might have been appropriate. Diplomacy, or something of the sort. His father might have agreed to that.
But he had always said that he liked to have the boys at home. “The girls will marry and leave me, that cannot be helped,” he had said, “but you boys need never leave. I like to have male company about me, otherwise I shall be quite outnumbered by the ladies.”
When Eustace had inherited his estate three years ago and was at the castle less often, the earl had been even more adamant that Kent should not leave home. And so he had drifted on, never pressing his case, telling no one what he really wanted to do.
He was not minded to meet anyone else he might be tempted to talk to, so he used the churchyard’s back gate behind the church to access the path back to Corland, then went straight to the stables for his horse. A brisk ride across the moors cleared his head a little, but he still needed time to himself… time tothink.He was not much given to introspection, but now of all times was surely the moment for it. He had never thought much further ahead than the next meal, not liking to consider the way his life might unfold in the years to come. But whatever of good or bad he might have hoped for, all of it had been ripped away from him, and he no longer knew what was in store for him.
He knew where he was going, however, for there in front of him was the tower. It had been built for a former owner of Welwood to enable him to watch the stars move across the sky. No one watched the sky from it now, but once or twice a month, Kent came here to watch for something else entirely.
The tower was built on a low rise amidst fields. Beyond the largest field was the road from Helmsley, and beyond that, Welwood-on-the-Hill, Eustace’s estate. Kent’s horse ambled along the narrow lane to the tower and halted obediently, knowing that he had arrived. Kent turned him into the large field where Eustace kept the retired ponies and donkeys, lifted the stone that hid the key and unlocked the tower door.
On the ground floor, a large square room was attached to provide a kitchen and larder, as well as a comfortable sitting room with a fireplace and a table big enough for a dozen men to sit around. The tower itself was smaller, a stone stair winding up past three floors to an upper room with huge windows and a narrow balcony with outer stairs leading to the roof. The summer was rarely balmy enough to make the roof enticing, so the upper room was fitted out with a brazier, several comfortable chairs and a sofa, together with a low pallet, rough mattress and blankets, providing the watchers with basic comforts.
On a stand, looking through the eastern window, was the telescope, an exquisite construction of brass that cheered Kent just by its existence. The world could not be a wholly terrible place when there were men in it who could make such wonderful devices. There was a box in the corner that the telescope had arrived in many years ago, and inside the lid was a small brass plaque with the name and address of the manufacturer. Some years ago, Kent had written to the address inscribed thereon, and after some weeks received a very courteous reply from an elderly gentleman who remembered making that very telescope. They enjoyed a wide-ranging but sporadic correspondence for two or three years before the old gentleman died, but Kent remembered him with great affection.
After running a respectful finger along the length of the telescope, he threw himself into a chair with a wooden footstool to accommodate his feet and pondered his situation.
He must change! That much was clear to him. This moment was not quite the miracle of which Miss Parish spoke, but it was perhaps a lever to tip him out of his comfortable rut and force him to take charge of his life. Eustace… he must talk to Eustace and make changes there, and then he would talk to his father.
These resolutions thus made, he returned to the ground floor and found some cheese and stale bread in the larder. He was making a modest repast of these items when the door opened and Eustace stalked in.
“I saw that slug of yours in the field, brother, so I knew you were here. Why do you not get yourself a decent mount? Father would not quibble over it.”
“There is nothing wrong with the horse — except his name, of course. Whoever called him Stupendous obviously had a different mount in mind altogether. I should rename him — Adequate, maybe. Satisfactory. Tolerable. But he gets me where I want to go without complaining or tossing me into a ditch, which is all I ask of him.”
Eustace was investigating several bottles sitting on the table, but they were all empty. “Is there no brandy left?”
Kent only laughed.
His brother laughed, too. “Stupid question, I suppose, but it feels like a brandy sort of day. Come back to the house — there’s plenty there waiting to be drunk.”
“No, I must get back and see what Father is up to. What are we going to do, Eustace? Is there anything we can do?”
“About Nicholson? Not a thing, I suspect. He cannot be ordained posthumously, and it would not help if he could be. Nothing is going to make us legitimate again.”
“No, the lawyer fellow made it clear about that, but I meant Walter. He has lost everything, and—”
“We have all lost everything!” Eustace said savagely. “We are all illegitimate, our good name destroyed, and through no fault of our own.”
