8
.
The drawing room.
A box tied with ribbons sits on the table.
"Ma boite, ma boite!" Toshiko crows as she rushes for it.
Jack is leaning against the mantelpiece, drinking. "Take it away you genuine Japanese daughter of Paris and amuse yourself with disembowelling it."
"We'll open it together, shall we?" Mrs Harkness kindly leads Toshiko away. Ianto is about to cross the room with them.
"Mister Jones. Sit there." He gestures to a chair by the fire. Ianto obeys. He studies Jack. He is intent on Toshiko, who is pulling a pink satin dress out of the box. "I'm not fond of children."
"Oh Ciel! Que c'est beau!" Toshiko screams with delight.
"Nor do I particularly enjoy simple-minded old ladies. But you might suit me - if you would."
"How, sir?"
"By distracting me from the mire of my thoughts." Jack speaks softly and Ianto cants his head with surprise.
Toshiko, irrepressible, runs across the room embracing the dress. She drops on one knee at Jack's feet.
"Monsieur, je vous remercie mille fois de votre bonte..." She looks up, seeking his approval. "That is how Mama used to say, is it not?"
"Precisely."
"Let's try it on, shall we?" Alice asks and Toshiko skips off with Mrs Harkness.
"And that is how she charmed my English gold out of my English breeches pocket." Jack notices how keenly Ianto is observing him. "Your gaze is very direct, Mister Jones? D'you think me handsome?"
"No sir."
Jack laughs.
"I was too plain; I beg your pardon" Ianto is horrified by the blurting of a lie.
"What fault do you find with me? I have all my limbs and all my…"
"Mr Jack, it was a blunder. I ought to have replied that beauty is of little consequence…"
"Now you stick a knife under my ear?"
"You have other qualities, sir." Ianto cannot save this so simply chooses to go silent.
"Just so; other qualities... When I was your age I was a felling enough fellow. I might have been insulted then. You're blushing Mister Jones." Jack is amused once more.
"Not at all."
"And though you're not pretty any more than I am handsome, I must say it becomes you." Jack is laughing openly now "And now I see you're fascinated by the flowers on the rug."
Ianto senses his mockery.
"I'd like to draw you out. Come, speak to me." Jack asks.
"What about, sir?"
"The choice of subject is entirely yours." Jack settles back, intrigued as he sees Ianto consider.
"How can I introduce a subject when I don't know what'll interest you?" Ianto splutters.
Jack raises a hand "The fact is, Mister Jones, I don't wish to treat you like an inferior."
"Yet you'd command me to speak?" Ianto folds his arms and looks at Jack in a way that is alarming.
"Well I probably have a right to be a little abrupt and exacting on the grounds of my superiority in age. There must be ten years between us and a century's advance in experience." Jack replies calmly.
"I don't think you have a right to command me just because you're older." Ianto scoffs "Your claim to superiority depends on the use you've made of your time and experience."
"I've made indifferent use of both. And this is why I sit, galled by my own thoughts – and order you to divert me. Are you very hurt by my tone of command?" Jack grins as he enjoys genuine banter.
Ianto smiles. "There are few masters who'd trouble to enquire whether their paid subordinates were hurt by their commands."
"Oh yes... paid subordinate; I'd forgotten the salary. Well on that mercenary ground, will you consent to speak with me as my equal - without thinking that the request arises from insolence?" Jack asks jauntily.
"insolence, sir. One, I rather like. The other, nothing free born should ever submit to – even for a salary." Ianto retorts.
Jack waves a hand "Humbug. Most free-born things would submit to anything for a salary. But I mentally shake hands with you for your answer. Not three in three thousand school Handlers would have answered me as you've just done."
"You've clearly not spent much time in the company of school Handlers. I'm the same plain kind of bird as all the rest, with my couple of accomplishments and my common tale of woe." Ianto is still assessing the man, he seems … gentler than he had thought.
"I envy you."
"How?" Ianto is surprised.
"Your openness, your clear conscience, your unpolluted mind." Jack smiles "If I were eighteen I think we truly would be equals. Nature meant me to be a good man, one of the better kind and as you see, I am not so."
"Are you a villain then, sir?" Ianto's eyes twinkle.
"I'm a trite commonplace sinner, hackneyed in all the dissipations that the rich and worthless try to put on life." Jack gives a sad face as he sighs "When I was your age, fate dealt me a blow. I was - cursed with a burden to carry through life. I lacked the wisdom to remain cool and I turned desperate. Dread remorse, Mister Jones. It is the poison of life."
Jack takes in his open, compassionate face. "And since happiness is denied me, I've a right to get pleasure in its stead. And I will get it, cost what it may."
"Then you'll degenerate still more."
"Are you preaching to me?" Jack is now struggling with mirth at the young man's dower attitude.
"I'm reminding you of your own words; remorse is the poison of life." Ianto snorts back.
"But, Mister Jones, if the pleasure I was seeking was sweet and fresh; if it was an inspiration; if it wore the robes of an angel of light... what then?" Jack asks.
"I don't know. To speak truth, I don't understand you at all." Ianto frowns.
Jack lets his head fall back "My heart has long been a charnel house. Perhaps it'll transform into a shrine."
Ianto looks for an out "Sir, I find the conversation has got out of my depth."
"You're afraid of me because I talk like a sphinx." Jack seems saddened with this, even as he knew he would confuse the young man, like he did everyone after a while.
"I'm not afraid."
"Yes you are."
Ianto shrugs "I've simply no wish to talk nonsense."
"If you did it would be in such a grave, quiet manner that I would mistake it for sense. Do you never laugh, Mister Jones?" This question cuts Ianto to the quick. Jack continues as he does not see the momentary flicker of pain across Ianto's face "Only rarely, perhaps. But you're not naturally austere, any more than I'm naturally vicious. I can see in you the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive. Were it but free, it would soar. Cloud high."
Ianto opens his mouth to speak - but he cannot.
.
.
.
.
Ianto is playing battledore and shuttlecock with Toshiko. His playing is full of energy, very free. His cheeks looks almost rosy. It is spring.
"Just as it turns to come down - that's when you hit it."
Toshiko serves. The game continues apace. Jack wanders out of the open double doors of the library. He watches.
Something lands at his feet. A rook's feather. He looks up at the battlements. A shape disappears, too fast to see. Jack's features cloud over with an expression of shame and detestation. He stands in a terrible inner conflict.
Ianto notices him - he misses his shot. He calls out "Mademoiselle has got to rest."
"Because I start to win!"
"Have mercy, Toshiko. Play with Pilot for a while."
Jack is leaning over the balustrade, his head bowed.
"Is our game disturbing you, sir?"
He looks up. A hard and cynical expression has mastered his countenance, something resolute. Ianto is taken aback.
"On the contrary. I like your game.I like this cold, hard day. I like Torchwood." Jack picks up the black feather. He starts to walk across the grounds at a fast pace. Ianto follows. "I've been arranging a point with my destiny, Mister Jones. My destiny stood up there by that chimney, like one of the hags who appeared to Macbeth. 'You like Torchwood?' She said. 'Like it if you dare'. Well, I dare. It's felt like a plague house for years"
He turns, the whole house now in his sights. He shouts "But Torchwood is my home and I shall like it!"
Toshiko is running after them. "Ianto - Il faut jouer …"
Jack snaps at her with shocking ferocity. "Get back! Keep at a distance child, or go in!"
Toshiko's face crumples into tears. Jack sees Ianto's shock at his outburst. He walks away.
Ianto isn't sure whether he has been dismissed or not. Toshiko has run back to Pilot. Ianto watches her. He suddenly finds Jack is back at his side. He walks him along. "She's the daughter of an opera dancer, Celine Sato. Celine was a beauty and she professed to love me. Her ardour was so great that, ugly as I am, I believed myself her idol. So I installed in her in a hotel, gave her servants, gowns cashmeres, diamonds - in short, I was an idiot."
"To fall in love, sir?"
"You've never felt love, have you Mister Jones? Your soul still sleeps." Jack is not sure if he should be sad or pleased at learning this.
"Does it?"
Jack smiles softly as he takes Ianto's hand "You're still floating gently in the stream of life, unaware of the rocks ahead waiting to dash you to pieces."
"Were you dashed to pieces, Mr Jack?"
"Not by Celine. How can one ever truly love a woman one has paid for?" Jack pauses, the grip on Ianto's elbow increasing as Jack leans in so Toshiko cannot hear "It ended when I visited her unexpectedly one night and caught her with her handsome, charmless lover. I overheard her waxing lyrical on all my defects - she was mercenary, heartless, senseless. The whole intoxication fell away like a dream. I left her money to support the little Japanese/French flowerlet over there, whom she swore blind was mine. Her mother was a pretty Japanese doll raised in France and that little weed was birthed there … I see no proof of my grim paternity in her features; I think Pilot is more like me than she."
"But you took her on?"
Toshiko is curled up, seeking comfort from the dog.
"Some years later, I heard that Celine had abandoned the brat, disappeared to Italy and left it destitute. So I lifted it from the mud and slime of Paris and brought it here, to grow up clean in the wholesome soil of an English country garden. My one good work in a sea of countless sins." Jack turns to look at Ianto who is looking at Toshiko full of compassion " You listen, Mister Jones, as if it was the most usual thing in the world for a man like me to tell stories of his opera-mistresses to an inexperienced boy like you. Toshiko?"
Toshiko looks up. Jack speaks graciously. "Forgive me; for keeping Mister Jones from your game for so long."
Toshiko is immensely gratified by his apology.