Phillip trudged up the stairs to the Bransons' flat, wondering how long it would take for his feet to drop off. It seemed he'd been standing up ever since he got out of bed that morning at some ungodly hour, and - he checked his wristwatch - it was past ten now. Sir Richard Carlisle did not, it seemed, believe in giving his employees an easy time of it - even if they were sort-of related.
His instructions, given to him in Sir Richard's office on Monday morning, had been very clear. "Make yourself useful, listen to the staff, and keep out of trouble. You've no idea the rhetorical hoops I had to jump through to persuade your mother to even let you leave Locksley. Don't make me regret it."
"No, Uncle Richard."
"Sir Richard, if you please, while we're at work. And don't expect an easy stroll because you're my nephew." Sir Richard's smile was very white and very brutal. "Quite the opposite."
So the week had begun. Since then, Pip had carried stacks of newspapers up and down stairs, bicycled proofs to the printers, made tea for offices full of typists, and minded the front desk for the office's terrifying receptionist Miss Forbes. "But really, sweetie, if you're going to be any use to us at all," Madeleine, one of the office girls, had sighed, "we really need to get your shorthand up to scratch."
And so, brain buzzing with funny squiggles and dashes, Pip had found Tom at the end of the day to join the throng of people boarding the Underground to go home.
"Oh, good, you're back," Aunt Sybil beamed as they opened the flat door. She was jamming a hat-pin firmly into her cloche, a few curls of her bobbed chestnut hair emerging from under the brim. "Dinner's on the stove, dears, and I must fly." Her eyes twinkled at Pip. "Night shift waits for no woman, I'm afraid."
Uncle Tom kissed her cheek and clapped Pip on the shoulder. "I'll walk with you to the Underground, love," he nodded, setting down his satchel. "Labour Party meeting this evening."
"C-can I come?" Pip wondered and Tom chuckled.
"Oh, yes, I'm sure your parents would love that. Whoever heard of a socialist baronet's heir?"
"Papa always says it's a good idea to see all sides of a question," Pip protested, and then bit his lip. It had been a long time since he'd thought of Papa in anything like flattering terms.
Aunt Sybil squeezed his shoulder. "And he's quite right. But I don't think Edith would approve - she said you were allowed work, catching up with your studies, and helping around the house. Not gallivanting around to political meetings." At Pip's grimace, Sybil's hand lingered. "I know it's not much fun, darling, but you just need to keep your head down for a while. Edith's bark is so much worse than her bite, I promise."
"It isn't feeling like that just now," Pip muttered, and Tom clapped his shoulder.
"Just have to swallow your medicine, then, won't you?" He shared a look with Sybil. "I suppose it's all right to leave him here on his own?"
At Pip's indignant intake of breath, Sybil put her hands on her hips. "Of course it is. Pip can be trusted to behave sensibly, can't you, darling?"
He couldn't argue with her: those clear blue eyes, the smiling mouth, that soft, warm voice. Really, as he'd been learning to his cost over the last few weeks, aunts of Crawley extraction could be the very Devil on a chap. "Of course, Aunt Sybil." And then, attempting to be grown-up about it all, he added, "I hope your shift isn't too awful."
Sybil shrugged. "Oh, it's nothing I haven't seen before. Injured soldiers and 'flu cases*, mainly. Don't sit up too late, all right?"
"And write to your mother," Tom had added. "She'll be waiting to hear."
Once the Bransons had gone, Pip found a bowl in a cupboard and ladled himself out some stew, hacked some bread from the loaf - really, he did think he was getting better at slicing it - and fetched A Princess of Mars from its hiding place under his mattress. He didn't think Aunt Sybil was strict enough that she'd confiscate reading material if she found him with it, but he hadn't been taking any chances. Certainly, she'd followed the rest of Mother's edicts without complaint - the conversation of the last few minutes was evidence enough.
It hadn't been awful, though, despite… well, everything. At the very least, having something productive to do with his days was better than being at school, with Andrew's empty desk next to him like a bullet-hole in his chest, or lurking around at home with everyone shooting him disapproving frowns. Aunt Sybil and Uncle Tom were far too busy with their own lives to either coddle or corral him too much. He'd helped to cook, he'd done dishes, and the grocery shopping, and been treated like an adult, not a naughty schoolboy.
Pip stood and went to the sink, rinsing out his bowl before turning to the bookshelves and rummaging in the cubbyhole where Aunt Sybil kept her letter paper.
At the table, he paused for a long moment, fountain pen hovering over the page, and then began to scribble.
Dear Mother,
Just a line to let you know I'm well…
Edith lowered Pip's letter to the blotter and sighed. It should have been a weight off her mind, to know that he was well, behaving himself and making himself useful. It should have been even better to have it independently confirmed by a second letter from Sybil, which had also arrived that morning. 'Really, darling, you've trained him very well. He's a marvellous help around the house and he's been as easily led as a lamb, where your rules have been concerned.'
Still, she couldn't help worrying. The nature of parenthood. And despite the jolly tone of Pip's letter, there had been an undercurrent of reserve there that she had hoped a fortnight's absence might have begun to wash away. Perhaps she had been too hard on him - and, which was worse, hard only because so many of the awful things he had been saying about Anthony had been things that had crossed her own mind, over the last month or so, as everything had only seemed to grow darker and more ominous around them all.
And, really, even if one set aside Anthony for a moment, had Pip said or thought anything worse than she herself had thought or said about her own father?
In short, she had been a hypocrite. She had been a hypocrite, and she had no idea how to fix it.
"My lady?" Mrs Dale knocked on the door. "The archaeologist has arrived."
Edith exhaled noisily. As if there wasn't enough to do…! "Thank you, Mrs Dale, I'll come directly."
Really, when he'd been invalided home from the Front, Colin had thought that he'd seen about as much mud as it was possible for one man to see in a lifetime.
Summer in Yorkshire was proving him wrong.
He'd spent some of the morning up at Mr Sanderson's, checking that the tarpaulin they'd pinned down over the trench had held, and then had walked home during the worst of the day's downpour. Now, as he rounded the last curve of the drive, and Locksley came into view, the clouds parted and a beam of sudden, blistering sun lit the figure of a tall, broad-shouldered Adonis on the doorstep.
Colin limped the last few feet - bloody damp playing havoc with his leg! - and asked, "C-can I help you?"
The Adonis turned, lifted his hat (revealing a head of rakishly curled salt and pepper hair) and drawled, in an accent that dripped privilege, "The name's Haxton, Leo Haxton."
"The archaeologist?" Colin stuck out an eager hand, realising too late that it was covered in mud. Still, Haxton shook it, albeit with eyebrows raised over startlingly green eyes. "Oh, excellent! My name's Colin Partridge, I'm the land agent here - I've been sort of managing our discovery. Mine and Mr Sanderson's, that is. He's the farmer whose tenancy it's on? Rather exciting, to be honest. I've been doing some reading and I think it's a - "
"Yes, well, best not rely on amateur speculations, hmm?" Professor Haxton cut him off, patting him kindly, patronisingly on the shoulder. "Easy to get overexcited. Why not… leave it to the professionals, eh?"
It was like being doused in cold water. Colin swallowed and stepped back. Haxton was uncomfortably, loomingly tall. "Yes. Yes, of course, professor." Coolly, he offered, "Would you like me to show you the site?"
"Why not?" Haxton smiled thinly. "And then I'd rather like to meet my hostess."
Author's Note:
'Injured soldiers and 'flu cases, mainly' - and there it is, folks. Blink and you miss it, the only reference I will be making in this fic to the Spanish 'flu. Dealing with a real-life pandemic is bad enough, without writing about one too…