AN: This story has been on my computer since January and I forgot all about it. I found it today by chance and brushed it off a bit. Hope you like it!
As always, let me know what you think!
Kat
He is completely flabbergasted when his wife tells him they are going to have another baby. Their youngest child is eighteen years old. They stopped hoping for another baby fifteen years ago. He has been a very happy man for the past twenty-six years, but now his chest is about to explode. He is sure that he will have another daughter, because, as he said to Matthew, he doesn't seem to be much good at making boys.
He knows that he won't have another daughter when he hears his wife's scream. His heart breaks, for his wife and their unborn child. When the doctor tells him that this child would have been a boy he can't help but picture his son outside, playing cricket and running through the house, trailing mud everywhere. He wonders what it would have been like to raise a son, something he hasn't wondered about ever since his eldest daughter was born, because in that moment he knew that he would be the father of girls. It has never bothered him; he loves his girls with all his heart.
But now, for a fleeting second he wishes that he could have known what it would have been like to be the father of boys.
Six years later
He stands at the window of his dressing room and looks down on the lawn. It appears that Matthew has been successful in persuading Tom to join the house cricket team. It's a good thing he did, because Tom seems to get the hang of it rather quickly and the team needs good players. He watches them play for a little while and realizes that he is glad that the two of them get along so well. After all, Matthew owns half the estate and Tom is its agent, it wouldn't do for them to fight. In fact they have fought, but on the same side. They fought to get him to agree to the modernization of the estate and they won that fight. He is thankful that they did because it has saved their home.
He realizes that it has started to rain and wonders if they will come inside now. Apparently they won't. They have found a new purpose for their cricket ball; they are using it as a football. They both seem to be strikers and keepers at the same time and they shove each other to the ground fighting for the ball. He has to smile despite himself and hopes that they remember that dinner is white tie today, because his mother his coming over.
His valet comes in to dress him and he goes into the entrance hall right afterwards because he wants to see his wife walk down the stairs in one of her lovely dresses. While he waits for her, the door opens and Matthew and Tom come inside, both splattered in dirt, arguing about who has won their football game. He doesn't know whether to laugh at them because of the mud in their hair or to scold them for the trail of mud they are leaving behind them. Because he can't decide he just says "Boys". They look at him rather sheepishly and Tom asks whether the dressing gong has rung already. "Yes", he says. "Dinner will be in fifteen minutes". Both of them start to run up the stairs and he turns around to watch them. He sees his wife moving towards the stairs and literally jump out of the way when Matthew and Tom come running. Just like him, all she can say is "Boys".
Miraculously they are in the drawing room in time. They both have wet hair and are being teased by Mary for having "played in the mud".
A week later they win the cricket match.
Matthew asks him if he has got time to talk. He has. They take a walk around their estate and Matthew tells him of the worries that accompany his upcoming fatherhood. "My father died when I was six", Matthew says. "I have no idea how to be a father."
"You are a good man, Matthew. You have risen to the task of being heir to the estate; you have saved and modernized it. Mary is happier than I have ever seen her, so you must be a wonderful husband. You'll be a wonderful father too."
"What if I don't know how to"
"If you don't know how to do something", he interrupts Matthew, "you'll come to me." He sees an odd expression cross Matthew's face.
"Thank you". He puts his arm around Matthew's shoulder and says "You're welcome, son". He guides him back to their house just as he will guide him through the first trying years of fatherhood.
He sits at the breakfast table, reading his newspaper. Matthew has already left the room and Tom is reading a letter from home. He hears him gasp and sees him storm out of the room. He wonders if he should follow him but he sees Matthew in the hallway and is sure that he will follow Tom.
He doesn't see either one of them again before he and Tom leave the house to go to a tenant farmer on the other side of the estate. As always, Tom is driving but he seems far off.
"Are you alright?" he asks. Tom stops the car and looks at him.
"My mother died", he says. "And I can't go to the funeral."
"Because you can't go back to Ireland. I am so sorry about that."
"Don't be", Tom says. "You've done all you could and I am grateful for it. I truly am." This time he believes Tom to say the truth.
"We can hold a memorial for her here if you like. Ask your brother to stay here."
"No. My brother doesn't talk to me anymore. He thinks that I have become too big for my boots." "Your father then. We'll pay for the crossing, don't worry."
"I don't have a father."
"I never knew that. I am very sorry Tom. When did he die?"
"He didn't die. He left when I was four. All I remember about him is him not being there for us."
"Tom, I " he sees the tears running down Tom's face and knows that he is about to break down.
All he can do is put an arm around him and let him cry on his shoulder. "My poor boy", he says.
He knows that something has changed between them. Tom doesn't call him "Lord Grantham" anymore; he calls him "Robert". He can't remember allowing him to do so, but then he can't remember Tom having allowed him to call him "my boy" either. He still does.
They have quite a few dinner guests and after the women have left for the drawing room, one of the men complains about those "upstart pretensions" of estate owners and agents who think that modernization will save them from ruin. "Fancy a game of billiards?" Matthew asks Tom and they both flee from the dining room. He wishes he could go with them. After he has led the men through to the drawing room a little while later, he goes to the billiard room himself. He wants to apologize to his boys and thank them for not picking a fight but getting themselves out of the line of fire instead.
"I wish Robert would stop inviting those stuck up aristocrats for dinner."
"How can he? They are from the same social circle. If he doesn't want to be an outcast he has to invite them from time to time. And I will have to do so after him. Although I don't fancy it much."
"No, I suppose you don't. But you will eventually get to invite their sons and maybe they are not as horrible."
"Wishful thinking." They both laugh.
"I wonder what he thought when I asked you for a game of billiards out of the blue."
"Who? The duke of upstart pretensions?"
"No. Robert."
He enters the room. "I thought that I wished that I could join you", he says.
"Come on boys, you can't hide in here forever."
"I wish I didn't have to invite people I don't like," he says to his wife when they are in their bedroom later that night.
"I am afraid it is part of our social life, my darling."
"Yes. And it has set my teeth on edge ever since we got married. First they complain about you, now they've taken on Tom and Matthew. The Duke kept talking about how horrible he found estate owners and agents who think that modernizing estates is the way to go."
"What did Tom and Matthew do?"
"Leave to play a game of billiards. I was rather the jealous of them."
"So you would have preferred playing a game of billiards with them to spending time with other Lords."
"Of course I prefer spending time with my boys over sitting in a room with those old farts."
"You keep calling them your boys."
"Does it bother you?"
"Does what bother me?"
"That I call them 'my boys'?"
"No. Why would it? That's what they are."
"You think so?"
"Yes. It's obvious. It has always been obvious with Matthew. You love him like a son and he loves you for that. It's different with Tom. He knows you didn't approve of him for a long time. He's fought hard to win your approval. And not only for Sybil's sake. And I think that he has won the fight."
"Yes, he has. He won that fight when he and Matthew came inside, all splattered in dirt, leaving a trail of mud behind them. When I watched them run up the stairs I didn't see two grown men. I saw two small boys. My boys."
"Yes."
"What about our boy?"
"What about him?"
"Do you think I should feel guilty? Have I replaced him with Matthew? And given Tom the status of a second son?"
"I think you've given Tom the status of a second son. But only because you look at Matthew as your first son. But you don't have to feel guilty. You haven't replaced our boy. You just love the two men he would have looked up to as his older brothers. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm sure he'd have idolized and loved both of them."
"What about you?"
"I love them too. But I'm sure they don't think of me as their mother. Tom might in some way because his mother is dead. But Matthew's mother lives just down the road. He has no reason to look at me as his mother. And I don't begrudge him for that. I'm glad he still has his mother and that he gets to see her almost every day."
"He sees you every day."
"Yes. We live in the same house."
They are at a shooting party that mainly consists of boring old men. He has no desire to go hunting with them. All they do is talk about how much better the world was twenty years ago. It drives him mad.
"Robert", one of the boring old men says. "Aren't you going to come?"
"Yes", he says. "I'm just waiting for my sons." He hopes they are coming and have not sneaked of to the village pub. Although he supposes that they would have told him had that been their plan.
Neither Tom nor Matthew is particularly good at hunting, but they never bring a loader and it makes things so much easier. They can make fun of the other men without the danger of one servant telling the other and it getting back to their host.
They are walking down the drive way and make a bee line for him. They bring three shooting rifles. "We thought you'd like to come with us", Tom whispers as he hands over the rifle. "Yes. Thank you", he says.
He sees them smile and knows they are glad that they are going with him because they are even less interested in what those boring old men have to say than he is. It makes him chuckle.
He is glad to be the father of those two boys.