Mary touched his hand, pulled it gently down and held it. And then she pulled him out of the hall, into the nearest room. His uncle’s study.
Jack walked over to the desk. It was a hulking, behemoth of a thing, the wood dark and scuffed and smelling like the paper and ink that always lain atop it.
But it had never been imposing. Funny, he’d always liked coming in here. It seemed odd, really. He’d been an out of doors sort of boy, always running and racing, and covered in mud. Even now, he hated a room with fewer than two windows.
But he had always liked it here.
He turned to look at his aunt. She was standing in the middle of the room. She’d closed the door most of the way and set her candle down on a shelf. She turned and looked back at him and said, very softly, “He knew you loved him.”
He shook his head. “I did not deserve him. Or you.”
“Stop this talk. I won’t hear it.”
“Aunt Mary, you know…” He put his fisted hand to his mouth, biting down on his knuckle. The words were there, but they burned in his chest, and it was so damned hard to speak them. “You know that Arthur would not have gone to France if not for me.”
She stared at him in bewilderment, then gasped and said, “Good heavens, Jack, you do not blame yourself for his death?”
“Of course I do. He went for me. He would never have-”
“He wanted to join the army. He knew it was that or the clergy, and heaven knows he did not want that. He’d always planned-”
“No,” Jack cut in, with all the force and anger in his heart. “He hadn’t. Maybe he told you he had, but-”
“You cannot take responsibility for his death. I will not let you.”
“Aunt Mary-”
“Stop! Stop it!”
The heels of her hands were pressed against her temples, her fingers wrapping up and over her skull. More than anything, she looked as if she were trying to shut him out, to put a stop to whatever it was he was trying to tell her.
But it had to be said. It was the only way she would understand.
And it would be the first time he’d uttered the words aloud.
“I cannot read.”
Three words. That’s all it was. Three words. And a lifetime of secrets.
Her brow wrinkled, and Jack could not tell-did she not believe him? Or was it simply that she thought she’d misheard?
People saw what they expected to see. He’d acted like an educated man, and so that was how she’d seen him.
“I can’t read, Aunt Mary. I’ve never been able to. Arthur was the only one who ever realized.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand. You were in school. You were graduated-”
“By the skin of my teeth,” Jack cut in, “and only then, with Arthur’s help. Why do you think I had to leave university?”
“Jack…” She looked almost embarrassed. “We were told you misbehaved. You drank too much, and there was that woman, and-and-that awful prank with the pig, and-Why are you shaking your head?”
“I didn’t want to embarrass you.”
“You think that wasn’t embarrassing?”
“I could not do the work without Arthur’s help,” he explained. “And he was two years behind me.”
“But we were told-”
“I’d rather have been dismissed for bad behavior than stupidity,” he said softly.
“You did it all on purpose?”
He dipped his chin.
“Oh, my God.” She sank into a chair. “Why didn’t you say something? We could have hired a tutor.”
“It wouldn’t have helped.” And then, when she looked up at him in confusion he said, almost helplessly, “The letters dance. They flip about. I can never tell the difference between a d and a b, unless they are uppercase, and even then I-”
“You’re not stupid,” she cut in, and her voice was sharp.
He stared at her.
“You are not stupid. If there is a problem it is with your eyes, not your mind. I know you.” She stood, her movements shaky but determined, and then she touched his cheek with her hand. “I was there the moment you were born. I was the first to hold you. I have been with you for every scrape, every tumble. I have watched your eyes light, Jack. I have watched you think.
“How clever you must have been,” she said softly, “to have fooled us all.”
“Arthur helped me all through school,” he said as evenly as he was able. “I never asked him to. He said he liked-” He swallowed then, because the memory was rising in his throat like a cannonball. “He said he liked to read aloud.”
“I think he did like that.” A tear began to roll down her cheek. “He idolized you, Jack.”
Jack fought the sobs that were choking his throat. “I was supposed to protect him.”
“Soldiers die, Jack. Arthur was not the only one. He was merely…” She closed her eyes and turned away, but not so fast that Jack didn’t see the flash of pain on her face.
“He was merely the only one who mattered to me,” she whispered. She looked up, straight into his eyes. “Please, Jack, I don’t want to lose two sons.”
She held out her arms, and before Jack knew it, he was there, in her embrace. Sobbing.
He had not cried for Arthur. Not once. He’d been so full of anger-at the French, at himself-that he had not left room for grief.
But now here it was, rushing in. All the sadness, all the times he’d witnessed something amusing and Arthur had not been there to share it with. All the milestones he had celebrated alone. All the milestones Arthur would never celebrate.