Page 40 of Lady for a Season
“Which what?”
“He liked to ride well enough,” said Joseph, speaking fast as though to get the story over and done with. “He had a pony, a dappled grey he called Pigeon. He loved that pony, rode it all over the estate, had a good seat, after a while he didn’t even need a groom with him. But his father insisted he should have a real horse, a larger one and Edward didn’t want to change, he wanted to keep his little pony, even though he was getting too big for it. You’ve seen his long legs.” He stopped.
“And?”
“And his father had Pigeon shot in front of him. Said if he wouldn’t give him up, he’d take him away and Edward would have no choice but to get a full-size horse.” He swallowed. “There was blood spattered on Edward’s face. He fainted.”
Maggie gaped at him in horror.
“How could he be so cruel?”
“The Duke was a hard man. He had no tenderness to him, and he tried to stamp out any sign of it he saw in Edward. He did not value virtues such as gentleness or kindness, he thought them weak, fit only for women. Pigeon was only one such occasion, there were plenty of others, but that is the reason why Edward is fearful of horses. It is not because he cannot ride or is afraid of them as animals. He was an excellent rider but after that day he would shake if he was around them and when his father tried to make him mount another horse he screamed. That was when they sent him away to boarding school.”
“At least he was away from his father.”
“You would think so. But he was broken by then already and boys in such schools… they are brought up to rule, to spot the weak within their ranks and toss them aside. They tormentedhim. He would come home in the holidays weeping, begging his mother not to send him away again and every time he grew more desperate until he tried to drown himself in the lake and after that… they sent him to Ivy Cottage.”
Maggie sank onto one of the dining chairs, legs grown weak beneath her. “Their own son?”
“Doctor Morrison told them what they wanted to hear: that he was mad, a lunatic, that he could be taken off their hands and either cured or simply kept away, a secret.”
“Didn’t anyone ask after him?”
“The spare? No. The heir was loud and visible enough in society, so they said Edward had gone to some school in Scotland, I believe. When he was old enough to have left school, they changed their story to say that he was at university, then fond of astronomy, that he was travelling, that he was… who knows? Who cared? No-one. By then his older brother was dashing about London with every pretty miss and her mama trying to secure him as a husband and every young rake trying to cheat him at cards. Who would even recall that there was a younger son?”
Maggie stood silent for a few moments. Everything she knew about Edward had changed in an instant. She had already doubted that he was a lunatic but had not trusted her feelings against the word of an eminent physician and Edward’s family… his own mother. Now she saw how Edward had been broken, not because his mind was weak, but because his father and those around him had taken everything that was good about him and thrown it back at him as a weakness, had crushed his spirit until he could take no more and, once broken, had further tormented him in the name of caring for him until he no longer knew what was true about himself and could only cower in fear from those who approached him. And then, this beast of a father and his thoughtless bully of a son had died and suddenly Edward hadbeen worth something in the family’s eyes, had been the way to secure the title and the estate, the vast riches which would otherwise have passed to someone else, leaving them behind, worthless without him.
The singing instructor professed himself delighted with Maggie’s voice and found little to improve in it, only introducing her to various new songs that she had not previously known, since most of her singing had been choral works or religiously themed. Now she was to sing appropriate arias from operatic works or well-known songs that other young ladies would have been taught to sing. She learned them quickly and when the instructor was not there would beg Edward to accompany her on the pianoforte, which he would do so long as there was no-one else around.
“It is not considered a manly instrument,” he said, when she asked why he was so reticent.
“But you play it so well.”
“I will play it whenever you wish to sing.”
One morning Maggie turned right instead of left. “I wish to see Lacey,” she told Edward. “I have an apple for her.”
He hesitated, followed her at a distance, lips tight, as she approached the stable block, a large low building set around a courtyard with a wide and high gateway, large enough for a carriage and horses to enter or exit. To the side, a fenced-off ring, strewn with gravel.
“What is that?”
“A training ring,” said Edward. “It is called amanege.”
In the yard, they were met by an old man with a hunched back.
“Your Grace. It’s good to see you.”
“Old John.”
The man smiled at Maggie. “And you’ll be Miss Seton that’s been doing so well with Lacey. I’m the stablemaster, everyone calls me Old John, my son’s John now, he’s the head groom.”
“I brought an apple for Lacey.”
“And there she is, waiting for you.”
Lacey’s curious face poked out of one of the boxes, and Maggie went towards her and fed her the apple, while Edward stayed in the centre of the yard, as far from any of the horses as possible.
“Can we come more often?” she said when she returned to him.
