At fifteen George was now the same height as his father. He fit into one of his father's old suits, though it was a little worn. The younger boys at the ball would be wearing school uniforms or blazers and he wanted to look older. He had always regarded girls as uninteresting until a year ago when girls had suddenly became more interesting than fast cars. Henry Talbot would still take him racing, he'd never let him behind the wheel of course, but he had learned to drive a little from Henry and his Uncle Tom. But it had been his father who had taught him how to shave. The first time George had truly felt like a man.
Once when he was six he had walked in on his father in the bathroom, a steaming towel on his face, his head tilted back a bit again the rest of his chair.
"Why do you have a hot towel on your head?"
He slowly removed the towel. "To soften the bristles."
He then watched curiously as his father lathered his face with shaving cream with a brush, then took out the silver razor, moving the blade up and down against the skin, watching in fascination as the dark hairs disappeared.
"Can you teach me?"
"When you're older." George bowed his head with a pout. His father probably saw his reflection in the mirror as he stopped shaving to look at him. "How about you and I make a pact. In about ten years or so, if you grow as much as a few unsightly whiskers, you come to me, then I'll teach you."
It was just last year when he saw a few hairs. He waited for it to grow in some more but it was still scraggly. He still went to his father anyway, well more like ran. He new his father's shaving schedule. Yes, he had a schedule for that.
"I got the hot towel ready."
"Good lad, you remembered."
"Where shall I sit or should I stand..."
"You're fine where you are. Just lay it on me."
"Beg pardon?"
"You're going to shave me."
"What?"
A few agonizing seconds later he had his father lathered. He could do this himself. He wasn't a completely invalid. What was the point?
"I thought you were going to teach me." George said, making his frustration known.
"I am teaching you. Think of it as an exercise of trust." He was taken back to a memory, the first year of his marriage, Mary had offered to shave him. She hadn't exactly given him an option. She had layed out his shaving tackle on the bed.
"I wanted to surprise you." She said.
Every time she came near him with the blade, he slightly jumped, and she hadn't actually started shaving.
"Don't you trust me?" There was laughter in her voice.
"Yes."
"Then why are you flinching?"
"It's hard not to when you have something sharp coming towards you."
"Yes. Of course." A habit that had increased since the war. "Think of it as an exercise of trust." She said. He hadn't thought of it like that then.
"Just keep your hand steady. Don't be nervous."
But his father's voice sounded a bit off. When he looked up, it was as if his father had gone off somewhere else.
"Dad? Dad!" He thought he was having one of those flashbacks mum had told him about. Should he go get her or...He called him one more time and suddenly he was back.
"What?"
"You went away for a moment there, like you were thinking about something."
"I was just thinking...recalling a memory actually, of when your mother and I were first married. She offered to shave me, well, she didn't give me much choice in the matter." George finished up. Matthew examined himself in the mirror. "Not bad. Missed a few but even I have trouble with. Now...your turn."
When he came down his parents were waiting in the drawing room. Dad was tall and thin, he looked like a coat hanger in his double breasted suit, no doubt one of the effects of the Great War. Mum was also tall. She looked elegant and beautiful as always, in her floor length dress, black lace over dark red silk. They were a handsome pair and were the most envied, despite his father needing a wheelchair. They often spoke of him as if he was a different person when using it, mostly when he was out of ear-shot or not around. George hated it. But there was nothing to be done; they were used to it. They shouldn't have to be. Some people won't be accepting, some will think that a disabled person's mind is defective just because their body is.
Granny Violet and Granny Isobel were the last to arrive. At ninety-five the Dowager Countess was still poised and elegant. She could not be hurried as if no social event were to start before she arrived. She was the grand old lady, chairwoman of the WI, the woman's institute. The tall gene in the family had been inherited from her side as well as the Crawleys', while Granny Isobel was petite and not particularly thin.
She was speaking to Isobel as they entered, "boys haircuts, and now girls using names meant for boys, what will they come up with next? How is school Andrew?" Granny Violet addressed her grandson as she sat down. She didn't like to call him Andy, as it sounded too informal. And Andy was also the name of Daisy Thompson's husband, even though the upstairs called them Mr. and Mrs. Thompson. They lived at Peach Tree Farm in the village. She wasn't too fond of Josephine being called Jo either.
"Terrible." He said with a mouth full.
"Andy's teachers say he works very hard Granny." Mary said.
"And he beats me at chess." Matthew added with a smile.
"Yeah, cuz you always let me win." He muttered and wiped a crumb from his lip.
"Manners." Violet reminded him.
"It is curious." Isobel said, "Your great grandmother's father, that'll be your paternal side, was the most successful banker of his generation yet he could barley read or write."
"I didn't know that." Andy was intrigued.
"But it doesn't give you an excuse to be lazy." Violet quickly added. "Work harder and you'll be fine." She said encouragingly.
The cars arrived to take them to the venue. He danced dutifully with several girls, Dot Pearson, Jo's rival, (Jo had nearly crashed her party last week, showing up in a short tennis skirt) and some of Jo's friends, Connie Thompson (no relation to Daisy and her husband) and Claire Rothman.
The Rothmans were Jewish. She had moved from Berlin as a little girl and lived with her grandparents. Though he did find her fascinating, being one of the few intellectual girls that George knew, she was off limits. Her grandparents were traditional and would never approve of their granddaughter hooking up with a gentile boy. None of the others caught his interest.
He was feeling quite irritated how popular he was. Every one wanted to talk to him, every girl wanted to dance with him. Parents were candidly trying to fix him up with their daughters. Most of them had lost their fortune in The Crash, or had scarce left.
Dot was talking to him again but he was not paying direct attention to what she was saying. Over her shoulder he caught sight of his cousin Sybil. She must have come in when he wasn't looking. She wore a simple V-neck silver dress that showed off her figure. She looked sensational, graceful and confident. She's my cousin. George thought. His parents were cousins but there were at least three generations between them. He wanted to find someone like her. He wanted a marriage like his parents' He wanted to love and be loved. But that was not for another five or six years. It didn't hurt to try early but he doubted he'd find anyone here.
He tried to follow her but lost sight of her. He stopped to grab a drink and went outside where some boys were drinking and smoking. One of them poured scotch into their drink and offered some to George but he declined, not wanting to get drunk. He did once and didn't like it.
Not far away he could hear his cousin's voice. She was talking to a group of boys, two, three years older. Fortunately he was taller than most, he looked older.
"We don't have to understand their problems. We have to stop them killing people."
"You just don't get it. Those Jews are hardly civilized." It was Dot's brother George Pearson.
"It's the people who chant 'Death to Jews' who are uncivilized." Sybie was all for England going to war with the Germans and they should. No one else was going to stop Hitler and his thugs.
George Pearson, known as Boy, further expressed his opinions of the Jews, agreeing that they were to blame.
"I don't care what their 'crimes' were." George said. "The people who did that to them are savages."
"What do you know?" Boy sneered, "You're just a kid." Then he directed at Sybie, "And you're just a girl."
"Politics is kind of the family business." Sybie smirked.
"I might be young and inexperienced, George added, but I wouldn't have made the mistake of speaking so condescending to a lady. Come on." He said, taking Sybie by the arm. As they pulled away from the crowd, they broke into a laugh as they ran.
"Are you going to the march tomorrow?" She asked once she caught her breath. They were out of sight of the party.
"I was planning to go."
"Don't tell me you're having second thoughts."
George shook his head. "No. Of course not."
"Great! I'll bring my camera. I might take some photographs." She was dabbling in photography and hoped that she could get them published in her Aunts paper. The one's from the march she'd send in anonymously of course.
"Great!"
It was his mother who talked to him about girls. She asked if he had anyone in mind.
"Not yet."
"I bet you will soon. With your charm and making them laugh."
"That's the best card I have!"
"Well, it took long enough for your father."
"Because he was stubborn and didn't think he disserved you." There was a sigh in his voice, that tone kids developed when they've heard the same stories over and over of how their parents met. But there was a part she hadn't told him.
"Not just that. I loved him from the first moment I saw him. Pined for him for years." She dragged out the words years, but I didn't even know it. Give it a few years." She moved to kissed the top of his head.
"Mum." He groaned as he tried to dodge it.
"Or several." She added.
October 4th, 1936, there was going to be a riot. George was bent over his Uncle's desk going over the map. It showed the route of the days march by the British Union of Fascists, planning to storm the overwhelmingly Jewish east end. Uncle Bertie had founded Britain against Fascism and anti-Semitism. George and Sybie wanted to join but Uncle Bertie had forbid it as they were too young. Even if they weren't he didn't want to put them in danger. The group wanted to infiltrate the march as parliament could do nothing to stop them. His Aunt and Uncle had discussed it at the dinning table over breakfast yesterday morning. What she didn't know was Uncle Bertie's plans.
George did and wanted to help. Despite his Uncle's heavy refusal against him wanting to participate, he would do it anyway.
So he had snuck into his Uncle's office to go over the plan, study it. Well, it had been more of Sybie's idea. He wanted to support her and keep her out of trouble. She would have found a way to go on her own. That he couldn't have. But this was their chance to make a difference.
He felt guilty for taking advantage of his Aunt and Uncle's hospitality but there was a chance to fight fascism here at home. It would be worth it.
Sybie overheard where they were going to meet, so they wouldn't run into and wouldn't be seen by their Uncle. As it turned out luck was working with them, the crowd was large enough to conceal them from anyone they knew and
There were people caring signs, that read, They shall not pass and Fascists out now! The peaceful protest was starting to escalate. And the police wouldn't be of any help as one them gave a Hitler salute. The police were apart of it! Or they would do nothing about it.
People started to shove each other.
"This isn't a good situation." He said to his cousin. "I think the police are in on it." But she didn't seem to be listening.
"Those bastards can't keep us back."
"Damn right." A man cheered beside her.
Parts of the crowd tried to defuse the situation. A man stepped forward, with a bullhorn, probably one of the Jewish store owners as he stood at one of the store fronts in a grubby apron, undoubtedly a butcher, "This is a peaceful protest. This is what they want. We're better than them!"
But they went unheard as the protesters began arguing with each other.
"Are you trying to start something?" One man said to another.
"Just stop pushing!" A woman yelled, trying to shield her daughter about twelve, obviously fed up and frightened. What was she thinking of bringing a young child here in the first place? Suddenly she was separated from her and was on the ground, a police officer standing over her.
"That son of a bitch hit that woman!" Sybie taking pictures, noticed. She stepped forward. George grabbed her arm to pull her back, sending her off balance. It made her drop her camera, falling into the throng. She tried to dive for it only for George to pull her back again.
"Just leave it! It's not worth it."
It was trampled and smashed to bits under the feet of the crowd.
"Come on, we have to get you out of here." He took hold of her hand and led her back the way they'd come. At some point he lost his grip on her hand.
"There is no need for violence. Police. There is no need to use your clubs!" The store owner continued.
Out of nowhere an officer grabbed her and tried to shove her out of the way. George tried to reach for her clumsily, the palm of his hand making contact with her face stream of blood coming from her nostrils. As the officer raced by, George helped her up. They hid around the corner next to an abandoned smashed store front.
He could see and officer and his Uncle Bertie talking with the man himself, Oswald Mosley. Trying to negotiate with him even though he knew there was no point? There was such a saying as know your enemy. He was sure that his Uncle's eyes caught his as he gave a nod. Not disappointed but impressed. Maybe they wouldn't be in trouble, and he hadn't seen Sybie with him and that she'd gotten hurt, from his big oaf of a hand.
Once they were clear from the crowd they broke into a run.
"That was exciting!" She said as they climbed into the back seat of a taxi. He took out his handkerchief and handed it to her. She faced away as she held it to her nose.
"If one of your suitors takes you on an actual date, he better have the same twisted idea of what passes as excitement."
"I don't have any suitors. Not anymore." It was clear that she was upset, that George Pearson wasn't the person she'd thought him to be, when he had voiced his anti-semantics' toward the Jews. She turned back towards him. "How does it look?"
"Like your father will kill me." He took the handkerchief from her, making sure he got the rest and apologized. "It was my fault really."
They pulled up to the drive.
"Don't come in. I'm going to lie where I've been, and I don't want you blabbing the truth."
"I'll wait for a few minutes. Then I'll come inside."
Their cousin Jay later that night, after greeting his father arriving home, cheerfully announced that they had successfully beat the fascists back. "They all retreated!"
George found himself hugging his older and younger cousins. Aunt Edith scolded Jay. He was too young to get involved.
"Come on, dear." Bertie said. "Let them celebrate this small defeat."
"Yes. Exactly. A small defeat. We may have won a battle but not the war."
Matthew pushed himself up the path leading to the Napier's barn where the several other men had gone. Mary headed toward the group on woman standing near the front porch, making it halfway when she saw Evelyn hobbling across the lawn.
"Goodness! What happened to you?"
"One of the horses was getting it's shoe changed the other day and stomped on my foot. It bloody hurt so bad I couldn't stand, much less put any weight on it."
"Did you go to the hospital, at least have it x-rayed?"
"Yes. I had it x-rayed and checked over really good. My driver took me. I feared my leg was going to be forever horribly mangled. That's why I was afraid to go, until my driver convinced me that I would have a crippled foot."
His driver? Not Adeline?
"Turned out it was only a very bad bruise. Don't think I would have liked being laid up in a cast. It would have slowed me down too much."
"No. You wouldn't want that." It wasn't the worst thing in the world that could happen to him. Sometimes Evelyn could be so insensitive, without realizing it of course.
"It was my ruddy fault. I wasn't paying attention."
" No one wants to think that their child could be ill."
Evelyn was silent, turning his attention to the barn. "I better go. My cousin is calling me."
"Right." She continued on her way toward the other ladies.
It was December of 1936 when Clarkson fell ill, with anemia, not the treatable kind. Matthew helped his mother take care of him and it was clear that he was going downhill quite fast. They predicted that he had somewhere till before or after Christmas left. He and his mother worked strongly as a team. He truly admired her determination that had made her an excellent nurse. But there was more to the woman than the strong exterior she put on, behind it was so much sorrow and regret. He never asked her the reasoning behind it. Maybe the way she had treated him in the past, though she had been a hard woman, though she cared for her patients, he had always looked up to her, as a small child must to a parent. After all this time, she had not once laid out her burdens of her past to him, as she had every right to. But he knew some of it had to be because of him, not inertly.
Matthew had thought he had gotten to know his mother better than the last twenty years they had spent rebuilding their relationship. She had been keeping a secret, well he felt it hardly was one. That he had a sibling that had died in infancy, (infant mortality rates were high back in those days) and that his grandfather had been married before. After the initial shock had worn off. The only person he could talk to other than his mother, was his wife. She was helping him getting the bed ready, adjusting the sheets.
"I know we all have our secrets..." He gave a shrug.
"Some we must keep even from our loved ones."
There were things he'd never tell Mary about the war, and she had long ago accepted it. "If it does more harm than good."
"My maternal grandfather was married before he met my grandmother. His first marriage yielded five children. As you know my grandfather Jonathan Turnbull was born in Wales. Their children were born in Australia where his first wife was from. Mother had no means of meeting them or had any interest in contacting them."
"What else did she tell you?" She never thought that Isobel's past would be intriguing, yet alone that she would be harboring any secrets. "Did she know anything else about this first wife?"
"That's just the thing. There doesn't appear to be any record of her, or any death record that my mother could find. My guess is he left her, my grandfather, for whatever reason."
"What do you feel about all this?"
"I don't know. I don't think it hardly matters. I can't be the judge of a man's actions, let alone a dead man's. Or pretend to know what was in his head. I know he was a great, honorable man. My mother thought the world of him, even I did, do. It doesn't change my opinion of him."
"Just because you made a mistake, doesn't make you a bad person." Mary knew most of all. He gave a nod, knowing exactly what she was thinking of.
"But if that was the case, I wouldn't be very pleased let me tell you, to learn that I was illegitimate."
"You wouldn't be. Though it would still be quite the scandal."
"That's why no one can ever find out. I'm sure I can find a death certificate of his first wife if needed to."
"You said your mother couldn't find any record of her. How do you expect..."
"She hadn't exhausted all her searches. And I have my ways."
"Oh." She thought he meant 'produced' faked, if anyone should ever ask and he couldn't find one. It had been so long ago. There would be no need for it. If there was anyone alive to prove it.
He knew this worried her more than him. He feared for his children and their future, if it was true, if his grandfather really had left his wife for another woman. It was more than that to her. He knew what she was feeling. She felt that her life could be falling down around her, as she contemplated weather or not their entire life together had been a lie. One thing wasn't a lie, their love for one another and their love for their children.
"Files are always lost or accidently destroyed all the time." He assured her. "or someone mislabels something. No one will be able to contest it, even if my suspicions are correct."
"Are you going to do anything about it? Track down these other relatives?"
"No. What reason would I have? Her half-siblings would be well into their nineties in the unlikely event that they are still alive."
"But their descendants might be. They might be able to prove it."
"Far distant cousins that aren't aware that I exist." He still wondered why his mother used to keep close to their distant French relations. Perhaps it was the connection to her mother, who had died when his mother was just two years old.
"I didn't know you existed till I met you." She reminded him.
"True. And I'm so glad!" He gave her a kiss. His words and his touch finally but her at easy. He was always her voice of reason. Even if they did know about Matthew, they didn't care. They would have come searching a long time ago.
"I don't think we have anything to worry about." He continued. "Unless my mother has a secret love child out there, which I highly doubt. I doubt she could tell me anything else that would shock me or make me hate her. I got all the family I need right here." He kissed her again and she reveled in it but he pulled away too quickly. He was deep in thought. "There are other things she wishes to speak to me about, but I don't know if I want to know them."
"Darling, she's eighty-one. She hasn't gotten much time left. She's got a sick husband to care for who has barely any energy to do anything, let alone speak. And you're the only other person she can talk to besides Granny. You're her son. He's going to need you. When it's all over."
"I suppose you're right. But what if it undoes all that, what we've built the past twenty years?"
"You already have the answer to that. You said so yourself. Whatever she has to tell you, you won't hate her for it. Maybe you'll find out who that child in that photo was."
Years ago, he had found a photograph of himself and an unknown female child, stuffed in an old book of his that he had never read. His mother had told him it had been a distant cousin. He wouldn't get a chance to ask her about it, with the holidays coming up and Clarkson being sick.
Clarkson died the following months into the new year. There was no question that he wouldn't press his mother about it now. She would have a lot on her plate to handle. Besides she said that it was a cousin of his, he was inclined to believe her, though there was still a small suspicion in the back of his head.
A few days afterwards, Matthew spoke to his children, telling them to spend more time with their grandmother.
"Why? Is she sick?" Andy asked.
"No. Nothing like that. He's probably going to feel lonely for a while."
They all nod.
Shortly after Clarkson's death, Isobel herself fell ill. She seemed to recover and bounce back rather quickly.
Adeline Napier had tea with Mary that afternoon, announcing good news of her own, not knowing yet that Isobel had received a clean bill of health. She brought Nathaniel with her. Katie and Caroline immediately took him up to the nursery with them.
"The doctor's given Nathaniel a clean bill of health. He said since he hasn't had a falling spell by now, he won't get the falling sickness. I feel guilty sharing this news, with your mother in-law being so ill."
"Actually, she's recovered!"
"That's as great news as any! With our luck our happiness has just doubled."
"The girls are especially happy to see him!" Mary turned her head just in time to see them round the top of the stairs.
"If only they were a few years younger." Adaline said. "I would have loved nothing more to join our families together one day."
"Nonsense, dear. Didn't you get the message? You're already part of the family."
Matthew came into the room. "What's this about family?"
It caused Adeline to smile brighter.
"We ought to put a bell on you Mr. Crawley." Mary teased. "You always enter at the most impromptu times."
"Are you staying for dinner?" Matthew addressed Adeline, trying to hide a smile of his own but it was evident in his voice. There was also a hint of laughter.
Adeline looked at Mary as if for an answer.
"Yes. Of course, she is."
"Yes." Adeline confirmed. "Evelyn will be arriving shortly, if that's alright that he joined us as well. He's getting his plaster cast off today. Turns out it really was broken."
"Our men and their stubbornness."
"Still in the room, darling." Matthew barley muttered.
"There's no reason to ever ask. He's always invited too." She turned back to her husband. "Tell Morrison to set the table for eight." Eight including Rachel, Granny, George and Josephine. The younger children still ate in a separate dining room.
"What about mother? Did you check if she was up to attending."
"I spoke to her earlier. She still doesn't have much of an appetite, getting over that stomach bug." Mary saw the concern on his face. "I'm sure that's all it is."
He gave a nod. "Eight it is then."
