Torn. Karen Turner

call your behaviour, then?” I lowered my eyes as tears pricked their backs. His voice was gentler when he spoke again. “We had fun when we were two. What fun if we were three?”

      “I don’t like him,” I repeated for it was all I could say.

      He sighed and pushed back his chair, indicating our game was over. “Have it your way, but you’re the one losing out.”

      The weather turned and suddenly overnight it brought snow and bitter winds. Prevented from riding, Pat began spending his time in the stables grooming Equus, or simply lying in the hay with a book. Daily I collected Jemima and hurried away so I could avoid him, but one morning I stood at the stable door staring bleakly outside. The snow lay thick on the ground and heavy in the trees, rendering impenetrable our usual paths through the woods. “You’ll not want to walk out today,” Patrick said. I started slightly for I’d not expected him to speak to me. He reclined in the hay in Equus’ stall. She was standing comfortably, head hanging low in a light doze. Jemima traitorously ambled to him and I silently berated her. Obligingly he fondled her ears and peered over at me.

      There was no malice or antagonism in his face and I felt a twinge of shame as he studied my sullen expression. I looked outside again to hide my confusion. The snow swirled on an icy breeze and turned the forecourt to muddy slush where the lads had walked back and forth during their morning chores. The trees in the park were grey and skeletal, and leaden clouds hung in the sky.

      Patrick’s eyes continued to linger on me. I gave an involuntary shiver and obstinately called Jemima to the entrance where the wide stable door was hooked to the outside wall to keep it from banging. Immediately a sharp gust of glacial wind blasted me in the face.

      “Don’t go out there just to be stubborn,” he said, coming up behind me. He unhooked the door and pulled it to, latching it shut against the blustery weather.

      Through the window I could see the storm moving in and the clouds boiling above the naked trees.

      “Have you forgiven me my verbal attack the other day?” The bluntness of his question caused me to pause. Uncertain how to respond, I made an ostensible contemplation of the weather.

      “If I’ve taken Simon away from you, I assure you it wasn’t deliberate,” he continued gently while I remained staring wordlessly outside. “Simon and I will be leaving for Oxford soon. Shouldn’t you be enjoying your time with him? You’re upsetting him, you know.”

      “I never wanted to hurt him,” I murmured. “But no-one cares how I feel. No-one understands.”

      He took my shoulders and turned me to face him, his head cocked to one side. “That’s not true. I do know. I understand that everything you’ve ever known is upside down.”

      His calm empathy caused my hackles to rise. “Oh you’re so experienced, such a man of the world,” I shrugged off his hands but he merely stared blandly at me and, in the face of his composure, I suddenly saw how childish I was.

      “Do you realise,” I continued, doggedly, “that in less than one year, I shall have added three new siblings? Your father installed as my papa? How can you know how I feel? I don’t even know myself,” I finished in a whisper.

      “You’re young yet,” he said, not unkindly, “your inexperience is telling on you. In time you’ll come to realise –”

      “You pompous swine!” I snapped.

      He shrugged and rested his arms on the window-ledge to watch the storm gathering over Jackson’s field. Jackson’s celebrated bull was nowhere to be seen, probably tucked up in a warm barn somewhere.

      “Yes, I suppose that would have sounded pompous,” he conceded. “But you can’t –”

      “Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do,” I snarled, confident that my 14 years made me quite fearsome.

      His brows rose beneath his hair. “This has been difficult for Maeve and me too –”

      “Oh, I’m sure it has been – you just march into our home and take over our lives and –”

      “Haven’t you ridden that hobby-horse to death?” Now his face darkened and he shoved away and returned to Equus’ stall. When he spoke, his voice was barely audible, “Yes, very fine for me, all nicely mapped out.” His mouth twisted bitterly. “Since Father was often away, I was learning the running of our estates under the guidance of our steward. Then, he summoned me to London; in his misguided way he thought I would enjoy it there. Oh, I learnt a lot at court, but not the way my father intended for it was expected that I would spend my youth in meaningless, privileged pursuits, marry a suitable maid, then apply myself to the business of producing a string of heirs – hearty Washburn stock. My thoughts on the matter were … are … irrelevant.” He shook his head angrily. “I shall never conform to expectations. I left court, returned to Waterville, and wrote to Father explaining that I’d remain there until the Oxford year resumed.”

      Up to this point he’d been contemplating his hands, but now he seemed to arrive at a decision. “Coming here was not part of my plan, nor was it my intention to disrupt your life. Maeve and I were not consulted, we were instructed. Further, I know full well your mother’s reasons for marrying my father. She cares only for wealth and position, and expects that if she bears a son, it will further cement her social standing.”

      I stared at him with growing contrition. He mimicked my petulance, “You don’t know what it’s like for me. The privileged world we live in makes no concessions for our individual desires.”

      I turned away, as with dawning self-realisation I saw myself as he must – childish, ignorant and selfish. I trawled my brain for something to say but nothing came, and finally, I capitulated and my arms dropped to my sides. He could be hateful and his words cruel, but he was right. I had conducted myself appallingly. I had been self-absorbed and foolish – everything he said.

      My nose was running with the dampness in the air and I swiped at it with my sleeve as I gathered my thoughts. In the tail of my eye, I saw he had returned to his book and after several long minutes, I drew in my breath and said quietly, “I have behaved dreadfully.”

      Without lifting his eyes he replied, “Yes. You’re also unworldly, quick to unreasoning anger, and childish in the extreme – a feisty kitten who thinks she’s a lion.”

      Realising immediately that he was trying me, I carefully modulated my voice. “Are you terribly miserable here?”

      He didn’t respond initially. He finished his page before closing the book and laying it beside him. “I wouldn’t say miserable. Perhaps … unsettled is more apt. Maeve adjusts better than I. She accepts things more readily. Acceptance, like patience, is a virtue and I am not virtuous.”

      This last was delivered with a smile that softened his features and caused me to look away in embarrassment for I was beginning to feel repentant of my recent behaviour. “Virtue is never left to stand alone. He who has it will have neighbours,” I recited softly.

      “Ah,” he said with surprised approval, “the feisty kitten quotes Confucius.”

      A small spark of solidarity with this complex boy flickered within me and, with some circumspection, I moved to sit beside him in the sweet-smelling hay, vaguely aware that we’d laid the first shaky foundations of a bridge across a chasm; a flimsy bridge nonetheless, and easily rocked by words of anger.

      And since he seemed to be in a rather expansive mood, I said, “You were born to inherit a great title and vast wealth. Does this not make you happy?”

      He smiled wryly. “It would be silly to say I wasn’t happy with that. Maeve and I will never know poverty. Our rank will gain us entry and privilege. But there are more worthy things I’d like to spend my life doing.”

      “You sound like Simon, though he’s by no means in your position. Simon