Rowland, when he was home, ate mostly in the dining room, in full dress with a white neckcloth, sitting alone when Father was not in residence, reading the trade news from London or abroad, or examining his butterfly collection. I envied that collection—such astonishing beauties—but I could never understand how anyone could bear to kill those defenseless creatures. As for myself, once I was released from dining in the nursery, I usually ate in the kitchen, if for no other reason than that there I was less likely to offend my brother, and therefore less likely to receive a box on the head or a rap on the knuckles.
Rowland had had a tutor since he was eight or ten, and I looked forward to the day when I could have a proper scholar to be teaching me as well. Rowland’s tutor was, no doubt, the second or third or fourth son of someone not wealthy enough or too old-fashioned to provide well for all his offspring, or perhaps he was the son of a penniless vicar. I was na?ve at that age, but I’d overheard enough gossip among the servants to know that if there was any fortune to be had in a family, it was vastly advantageous to be the eldest son. I had not yet thought what that might mean for me, as I was too enthralled with ideas of knights and pirates to be having practical notions about my own future.
I imagine that Mr. Richards, the tutor, was actually a decent teacher, but Rowland, who was anxious only to get on with life, was at best an indifferent student. Except in maths. Rowland loved calculations of all sorts. The income needed per month to reach three thousand pounds in two years. The odds at a horse race. The likelihood of being able to buy some tumbledown building in any given town or city and hire laborers to fix it up—if only to dab on a bit of whitewash to hide the worst of the damage—and then sell it at enough of a profit to make the whole thing worth the trouble. Or the market advantage of planting rye instead of oats, or raising cattle versus sheep. One of the earliest arguments I ever heard him have with our father must have been when I was about four and Rowland would have been twelve, and Rowland was trying to talk Father into inclosing more of his land to increase his crop yields, sending the less-industrious tenant farmers packing and turning over their fields to more assiduous ones. “You can charge higher rents,” I remember him saying, “and the crop yields will be better. It is not our responsibility to provide a living to incompetents.”
Father just laughed and gave Rowland an affectionate cuff on the shoulder. He never followed through on any of Rowland’s ideas, but even I could see his pride that this first son of his showed such interest in economic betterment.
I had always imagined that when I was old enough for the tutor, I would become as wise in the ways of the world as Rowland, and Father would laugh and cuff me on the shoulder too, and we three would dream up more and more inventive ways to make Father’s wealth greater and greater.
Chapter 2
I rose early on that thirty-first day of March, my eighth birthday. I had gone to bed the night before with the anticipation of great things in the day or days ahead. There were hints of such possibilities—subtle ones, but even so, I, in my mostly careless abandon, had noticed. Several communications had arrived in the preceding weeks, some of which I managed to snatch a quick peek at before they were whisked away, but while I was not privy to their contents I saw that most were from my father, and I imagined that I, too, would soon begin my formal education. As well, there were whispered consultations in the kitchen and the back stairs, which ended the moment I appeared. I would have been dense indeed not to be aware that change was afoot.
Cook laid out two raisin buns for me at breakfast that day with an indulgent smile and offered to cook my eggs in whatever style I chose. I briefly thought over that momentous decision, and then fell back into what she always fixed: two boiled eggs with extra butter. She gave my shoulder a squeeze at that, and turned quickly away. I was buttering the buns when Holdredge stepped into the kitchen. As butler, Holdredge was much too busy and important most days for the likes of me, so it was a surprise when he strode right up to me. Immediately I wondered what I had done wrong, what mischief he had attributed to me. But he said only, “Master Edward, teatime in the dining room today. Promptly.” And then he turned on his heel and left.
The formality of it terrified me. He had called me only “boy” before, as did my father, always. But my father was away, so whom was I being summoned to meet? I scraped through my mind, trying to think of what I had done in recent days to earn such a frightening order. It was true that I had forgotten to clean my boots after slogging through the horse yard on the last rainy day. My father and brother, of course, routinely left their messes for others to clean, but I was not—yet—privileged to do so. And I had tied a cowbell around the neck of Father’s prize bull to see if its gentle sounds would render him as docile as the cows. That did not work, I discovered, and in fact he was nearly driven mad by the bell’s insistent clanking. Removing it fell to one of the farm laborers, who was almost gored in the process. But that was two or three weeks before, and I had drawn only a sharp reprimand from Ames, my father’s steward, and an order forbidding me to come within ten yards of any cattle. Yet I could not think of any other sin or transgression worthy enough to have me called “Master Edward” and summoned to the dining room.
The worry of it preyed on me as I ate my breakfast, and as soon as I finished I fled to the nursery, which was where Rowland found me. He was dressed for riding, which he did nearly every morning on his great black stallion, Thunder. “Well, Toad,” he said, as if he were imparting news of which I, a mere child, was unaware, “it’s your birthday today.”
“It is,” I responded amiably, suddenly imagining a gift of some sort in the hand he was hiding behind his back.
But he grabbed me by the collar and, throwing me facedown onto my cot, brought his riding crop from behind his back and gave me eight quick whacks. He left the room then without another word.
It is true that in certain households it is customary to give the birthday child spankings equal to his years, and it is also true that I was fully dressed and the crop left no lasting pain. Yet it was so far from the kindness I had allowed myself to hope for that I could do no other than remain, face in the bedclothes, weeping.