Chapter 32
32
‘I go back tomorrow,’ Benji said, as Olivia sat opposite him at the breakfast table the next morning. ‘But I’m not as worried about you as I was back at Easter. You seem brighter, somehow. Almost radiant.’
They were alone in the dining room as his parents had stayed later at the harvest supper and not surfaced yet. Olivia reached for his hand and squeezed it. His cheeks coloured like the banks of willowherb that ran down to the village, but he was at the age when it didn’t take much to make him blush.
‘I feel better,’ she said. ‘I will always miss Howard but I recognise that I have to move on.’ What she couldn’t admit to the young lad across from her was that she had moved on already. Ten months after his brother’s death and she had fallen in love with another man. One who, to be utterly factual, she had never even met, and more than that, she had been intimate with. Although she had no concerns that she might be carrying Seth’s child.
‘Mother says you’ve started writing again?’
‘Yes, a novel, but it will take me months to complete. And you? Did you find any time this summer for your sketching?’
Benjamin avoided her eye and she saw his jaw tense as he gripped the handle of his knife even tighter. ‘Pa’s not so keen any more. Made some comment about painting being for children. I was indulged when they had a litter of sons, but my future is no longer going to include studying at The Slade. Clarence said some things in the letter he left after his death, which strike an uncomfortable chord with me now. He was apologising for being such a pill, and trying to explain why he was the way he was. Honour, duty, obligation… all things he had to uphold but that came with so much pressure. I was not given the opportunity to fight so I must do the right thing and step up instead. Art can only ever be a hobby, whilst I feign an interest in hunting, shooting and fishing.’ He sighed. ‘Although everyone’s appetite for such things is waning now.’
‘The war has destroyed so many people’s hopes and dreams,’ she agreed. ‘But at least we are alive to have those dreams. We have a future – something denied to so many.’
‘Look, about that, I overheard Mother talking to Father.’ He sat up straighter, pulling his shoulders back and scrunching up his brow. ‘She was bandying some names about – fellows who’ve come back from the war and are looking to settle down… She means well but she doesn’t understand that it’s far too early for you to be thinking about that when Howie is barely cold.’
Olivia cast her eyes to her plate, looking at, but not focusing on, her devilled kidneys.
‘She believes that the distraction of running a home and motherhood will help, whereas I’m of the opinion that marrying in haste could lead to a lifetime of regret. It comes from a good place, but she’s interfering?—’
‘And you wanted to warn me?’
His pale face looked serious and his young eyes shadowed and intense. He pushed a spoonful of scrambled eggs about his plate.
‘Not exactly.’ He swallowed and cleared his throat, pink spots flashing briefly on his round cheeks. ‘I wanted to get in first, so that I don’t come back at Christmas and find you’re engaged again.’
Olivia frowned.
‘I know you aren’t going to take what I say seriously but I need you to understand this isn’t a sudden, impetuous gesture. You mean the absolute world to me, Livvy, but you never saw me – not like that – and I suspect I will always be a boy to you. But I’m old enough to know my own mind.’ He swallowed hard. ‘I’m not about to drop to one knee and propose, I realise that would be ridiculous, but if you could hold off for a bit. Maybe we could reach an understanding… Wait and see how the land lies when I’ve finished my education?’
Olivia watched the horrifying scene unfold before her. How had she not seen this coming? What clues had she missed?
‘Oh, darling Benji… Benjamin,’ she said, being careful that her tone in no way mocked his sincere gesture, and reached her hands out across the tablecloth again, but his fell to his lap.
She placed her napkin by her plate and pushed the chair back to stand. Manners dictated he do the same. He took a step towards her and it was immediately disconcerting, because despite her being four years older, he was considerably taller. In that no man’s land between being a boy and an adult, he was hurtling towards the latter at an alarming rate. And there was no denying that, despite the spectacles, he was a handsome young lad. Those cobalt eyes of his retained their earnestness, which was as attractive in its way as the cheeky twinkle of Howard’s. Their features were so similar that she could almost imagine it was her fiancé standing in front of her now.
Benjamin studied her face, absorbing every tiny detail in the hope it would give a clue to her imminent response.
‘You are the sweetest man I know.’ She deliberately used the word ‘man’ so as to be sure not to patronise, but couldn’t he see this was ridiculous? She didn’t love him in that way. She wasn’t even certain that his feelings were of a romantic nature, despite his declaration. He was being noble – perhaps feeling it was his duty to take care of the woman his brother had loved now that she was alone again. Or simply confusing their very special friendship as something more because she’d come into his life and given him the affection he was lacking at a critical age.
‘It’s kind but?—’
‘Don’t tell me it’s a kindness. I love you, Olivia.’ He held her gaze, finding an inner strength to brazen it out. ‘This is nothing to do with Howard. Do you have any idea how devastated I was when Mother told me the two of you were engaged? How it cut me to the quick that I’d been trounced by an older brother, again. All my life, I trailed in their shadows, not big enough, strong enough, old enough to be part of their gang. I was teased for my spectacles, mocked for my stature, had my art derided, and consistently underestimated. But you saw me, you stood up for me, you cared for me.’
‘Absolutely and unconditionally. And my response is nothing to do with your age, nor am I in any doubt of the sincerity of what you say, but it wouldn’t be fair to either of us. I love you beyond measure, but not like that. I’m so sorry.’
‘But the night we spent together in the tower? I thought it meant something. I thought…’ His voice trailed off and she realised her foolish error. It had meant something different to him because, like her infatuation with Tanner before the war, when your body was changing, and your emotions were heightened, any small gesture could be misinterpreted. It was easy to latch on to an older figure and imagine yourself in love.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I can wait.’
Could he not see she was serious?
And yet there was a part of her that recognised that her adolescent feelings for the gardener, and Howard’s adolescent feelings for the strange orphan girl who had dropped into their lives, had both proved to be genuine. And the words ‘pot’, ‘kettle’ and ‘black’ were foremost in her mind.
* * *
As if being ambushed by Benji wasn’t enough, later that day, Lady Fairchild pounced on her as she sat at the piano. Her playing was mediocre but being in love made her feel capable of anything.
‘You know that I love you as one of my own, and nothing would have made me happier than for you to step into my shoes one day, but it was not to be. I am, however, conscious that you don’t have a close circle of friends. I know that you missed Ruth when she married, and many of those who you kept company with are gone: my darling boys, the nurses and wounded men who befriended you during their time at the hospital…’
‘I still correspond with one of the nurses. She has invited me to stay with her if I should ever find myself in Lincoln.’ Olivia closed the lid over the ivory keys and wondered where this was heading.
‘I don’t say this to get rid of you, God knows my heart will break to see you go, but I want the best for you. Sir Hugo has an aunt who lives in Whitechapel and I thought you might like to stay with her for a while – go to the theatre, drink cocktails at a nightclub, listen to this new-fangled jazz music that all the youngsters are talking about…’
It was an exciting prospect, and one of the things she’d promised Howard was to have magnificent adventures. If she was going to have a serious stab at this writing lark, she should be embracing every opportunity that came her way. But going to London would mean leaving Seth behind.
‘I’ll think about it,’ was all she could say, because now they’d realised exactly what they meant to each other, there was no way she could do that. Their connection couldn’t extend beyond the tower, never mind beyond the county.