Sensing his eyes on him, Will looked up.“Aye.”He nodded.“Perhaps we both need to muster some courage.”
*
MULLING WILL’S WORDS, Lyndon strolled back towards home, skirting the lake.Some days, he was bold enough to walk along the edge, even though it brought everything flooding back, especially on days he spent time with Will.Though, sometimes, with Will serving as a constant reminder, he wondered if it had ever gone away.
The sun beat down, suffusing his land with a drowsy warmth.After his work with the hoe, Lyndon felt as if the day’s heat lived inside him, despite his light linens.He’d have swum in the lake if not for its sad history.Imagining stripping off his shirt and plunging in the cool water only made him even hotter.Reluctantly, he took a last lingering look at the tranquil, inviting pool before turning and taking the path through the woods.
A splash of colour caught his eye as he turned, a dancing shard of turquoise dipping between the trees, a dazzling stripe against the brown of the trunks.He squinted and, like a heavy branch falling upon him without warning, there came a rush of fear.
“No!”He broke into a run.His bellows carried through the still air as if fired from a musket.“No!”
Panting heavily, he crashed through the brush, emerging from the thicket at the exact point where Duchamps-Avery sat on the bank of the lake.His trousers were neatly rolled back to his knees; his two milky feet dangled in the cool water.Serene and still and safe.As quickly as it came upon him, Lyndon’s terror leeched away, leaving him feeling a tad foolish.
“Lord Lyndon, I presume,” Duchamps-Avery said without looking up.“It’s either you or a rangale of frightened deer.Have you come to check up on me?”He spread his arms.“As you can see, I am quite alone.Not a married countryman within miles.”He did lift his head then, regarding Lyndon coldly.“To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”
Lyndon flattened his hair, composing himself.“I was not seeking yours, I assure you.I thought that…that… Am I not permitted to walk my own grounds?”
“The servants tell me you rarely come this way.Seems they are misinformed.”
For once, Lyndon did not bite.Though full of his usual acerbity, Duchamps-Avery’s appearance gave him a twinge of alarm.The skin covering his fine bones was impossibly pale, as if the day’s bright sun shone through him.
“Are you ill?”Lyndon demanded.
“Should you care if I was?”The boy turned properly, and with a wash of relief, Lyndon saw fire in those pale eyes, still burning bright.
“Of course not,” he snapped.“Though your father might, thus I am obliged to enquire.”
Duchamps-Avery smiled humourlessly.“Fear not.There is little to report other than a severe dose of humiliation.And, though painful, it is a condition from which one generally recovers.”
Lyndon knew that immediate sting all too well.“You should be grateful there was only me to bear witness.”
His own humiliation, two years gone and at the hand of this boy’s father, had been much more public, though Lyndon had long ceased to feel the acute pain of it.Indeed, as he stood before this troubled youth with a peculiar and unfamiliar desire to comfort, it occurred to him how much he had grown since then.Perhaps, in the long run, his disgrace had served him well.
“Use it for the good,” he barked.“Learn from it.”Deciding he’d provided ample sympathy for one day, he added, “And for God’s sake, stay out of this lake.”
“Why?”asked the boy, his pale eyes turning curious.“The heat is so relentless; I have a mind to swim across it.Willoughby and I bathe often in the lake at Rossingley.”
“Well, you can’t.Mine is out of bounds.I won’t allow it.”
The boy huffed, kicking his feet.Ripples spread across the still water.“You won’t allow it?Will you wrestle me back if I’m tempted to disobey?”
The panicky feeling returned to Lyndon’s chest.Even the slippery pondweed, swirling around Duchamps-Avery’s slim feet, clinging to them like clawing fingers, unnerved him.
“Please.”His voice cracked.He licked his dry lips.“Do not.”
Duchamps-Avery threw him a strange look.
“A…a friend almost drowned here,” Lyndon bit out.“Several years ago now.He is much changed since.I…I treasure the memory of how he was before.”
Treasure, lament, pine—any verb would do.But mostly, Lyndon missed him.He missed the old Will’s companionship, his constancy, how he would run with Lyndon through the marshes on light, agile feet.Knowing he had a person who loved him just because he could.Aye, and his sweet kisses.
“Do you store this memory in a glass jar on your desk?”Duchamps-Avery’s chilly, harsh tone cut through Lyndon’s drifting thoughts, the tone of a terribly upset person wishing to hide it.“Perhaps alongside a jar containing your own.Do you boast a collection?”
“No, but if you continue in that vein, my friend, I may well be tempted to start one.”
The boy fiddled with his cuffs, then plucked at blades of grass.Wiggled his toes, examined them, this way and that, as though checking they were still perfect.Always so damned restless.As if impatiently waiting for something to happen, for his deus ex machina to shatter the tranquillity of Goule.See?Lyndon was a Latin scholar after all and, perhaps after his conversation with Will, able to recall how it felt to be young, wretched, and bored.And how hard it was to examine one’s actions and find them wanting.Even when one wasn’t so young.
“I have not been the most welcoming of hosts,” Lyndon offered, surprising himself.“I would like to extend an apology.You have…have surmised that I am not the happiest of souls, and you are correct.I was hoping my prolonged, self-imposed exile here at Goule might…ameliorate that.Sadly, it has not.”
