Page 5 of The Best-Kept Secrets
“And the Christmas goodies? You’ll miss them as well. Your father and I cannot enjoy the gingerbread and shortbread and Christmas pudding nearly as much without you here.”
Duke’s home life wasn’t always ideal, but Christmases were special. His parents were happier.Hewas happier. During those few weeks, he would build enough pleasant memories to get him through the difficult months that always followed. And in those enjoyable interactions, he’d found reason to believe his could be an amicable family. It was a hope he still clung to and leaned on.
“Could you not cut your house party short and return in time to have Christmas here?” Mother pleaded. “It is such a special time for our family.”
“This is the last time our entire group will be able to be together, perhaps ever. Being away from our families during Christmastime is not ideal, but it was the only time all of us could gather.”
“I, of course, don’t wish for you to not see your friends. They have been good to you, which, as your mother, is so very important to me. Surely they would wish to continue being good friends to you by not taking you away from your parents during the holy season.”
“This is only one Christmas.”
“But Christmas is special, Dubhán. Please reconsider.”
“We can have Christmas puddings and cakes and biscuits when I return.”
“It won’t be the same.” Tears clogged her words.
“But we’ll be together. That is the important thing.” Duke always disliked the placating approach he had to take when Mother was inconsolable. But it was what worked. And not doing what she expected when she was upset simply made her more upset. “I will have all the rest of my Christmases here.”
“Until you have a wife and her family wishes for your Christmases to be spent with them.” Mother wasn’t usually consoled on the first attempt; he ought to have expected further complaint. And predictions of her suffering when Duke eventually married numbered among the many reasons he didn’t even entertain the idea of courting anyone. Any lady he brought into this whirlwind of familial wretchedness would be made miserable. “Her family will demand all your time and attention, and I will receive none of it. Marriage has a way of tearing families apart, after all.”
“Most would argue that marriagecreatesfamilies,” Duke reminded her.
“Your aunt’s marriage certainly tore your father’s family to bits.” Mother crossed her arms in a posture of disapproval. Duke could—anddid—predict her exact next words. “And she doesn’t even care.”
“I don’t imagine she would have married Uncle Niles if she didn’t care.”
“Of course she cares abouthim. But not about me and the difficulties I endure. She certainly doesn’t care about your father. I suspect she has taken actual delight in our suffering these past thirty years.”
“Mother, you haven’t even known Father for thirty years.” Duke immediately regretted the correction. His parents could be very defensive, regaling him with litanies of complaints, declarations of disloyalty, pointed silences that inevitably left him feeling deucedly guilty.
“Twenty-five years,” she conceded in sharp tones. “Perhaps in five more years, my suffering will be considered sufficient for my own son to think I don’t deserve to be miserable.”
“That is not what I meant, Mother.” Duke returned to his detestable tone of consolation in an effort to restore their more companiable conversation of a moment earlier. His parents were difficult when focused on their grievances. But when they felt appeased and heard and cared about, there was peace and a degree of closeness among them all. He preferred those times. “Twenty-five years is longer than anyone should spend being unhappy. I want you to be happy. I have always wanted you to be happy, Mother.”
“Oh, Dubhán. You are so expert at giving me a measure of peace.” Mother’s voice quivered with emotion. “How very good you are at helping.”
Being rubbish at it had never been a viable option. He was the ambassador, the peace negotiator, the one who redirected their declarations of injustice. He had been since he was very young, and he would continue to be for, he suspected, the rest of his life. But if it kept the household peaceful and afforded him pleasant times and memories with his parents, it was worth it.
“Do you truly have to leave today for Ireland?” Mother asked once again. Apparently, his reassurance a moment earlier that he loved her had not proven sufficient. “Could you not wait another day or more? My heart can’t bear to have my only child leave me so soon after returning at last.”
Starting the whole mad cycle anew, he repeated, “If I am to fetch the O’Doyle sisters and we are to reach Fairfield in time for the beginning of the house party, then I cannot wait even another hour.”
From the doorway, Father said, “I still don’t understand why Fairfield, of all places, was chosen. I assume Penelope convinced all of you that she and Niles would be better hosts than your mother and I could be.”
Duke undertook an immediate change of tactic. While Mother responded best to repeated reassurances that her place in his life and esteem was sufficiently high, Father calmed fastest when provided with proof that in matters pertaining to his sister, he was not perpetually second best. “Newton and Toss are in London, and neither can travel far or for long. We had to choose a location near Town.”
“I suppose Lancashireisquite a distance to travel,” Mother conceded.
“I assure you,” Father said from far atop his high horse, “Lancashire was not my first choice.” Then, under his breath, he added, “We ought to be living at Ballycar.”
Ballycar had been the family estate until a few years before Duke was born. Father had fallen on financial difficulties—through no fault of his own, when he recounted the experience,butas a result of his poor choices, according to Aunt Penelope’s recollections—and had lost the estate and the successful stud farm the Seymour family had run there for generations. Father blamed Aunt Penelope for not coming to the rescue at the time, her finances having been in a better state than his. Aunt Penelope insisted she’d not been as flush in the pockets at the time as Father had believed and that she had done nothing wrong in not trying to pay off all Father’s debts.
Through years of listening to and then being required to mediate arguments about that point of contention, Duke had discovered that the Seymour family blamed each other for most every difficulty they’d had in life in the years that had followed.
“Surely someone else in your group lives at a convenient distance from London,” Father said. “It didn’thaveto be Fairfield.”
“Newton’s flat is barely large enough for him and his wife. Toss and his wife live in another family’s home while the family is away from Town and are not in a position to offer it for our use.” Giving logical explanations for the slights Father felt in far too many aspects of his life helped soothe his wounded pride. For a while, at least. “Charlie is in Northumberland. Scott is in Nottinghamshire. Tobias is in Yorkshire. I am in Lancashire. None of those options is anywhere near London. Colm is the only one whose family home could work. That’s why it was chosen.”
