Charles by Con Riley

27

Charles made it home before six.

Casterley was at its best in the early evening, bathed in mellow sunshine, but somehow the sight of the house rising like a ship with tall masts, its flags fluttering, didn’t touch him. The rolling hills behind it could have been a sea of green waves it sailed on, because Charles felt a swell of something like seasickness. He slowed down along the last half mile of the driveway, deer scattering at the rumble of the Defender’s engine.

Closer now, Casterley’s portico almost glowed in sunlight that softened its hard edges, and there stood George, waiting for him.

He watched Charles pull up, his arms folded and legs braced, as though Casterley truly was a ship he captained, ready for a sea battle.

Charles already felt defeated.

He got out of the car, taking his time getting his suitcase, staving off the inquisition he knew was coming, then he stood at the base of stone steps their family had trod for generations—had built at a time when love matches hadn’t existed, so surely none of his ancestors could have had hearts this heavy.

Even taking the first step up to the front door was beyond him.

He didn’t have to.

George came down to meet him, surprising Charles by holding him by both shoulders.

He didn’t ask, “Are you okay,” like Ruth, Sol, or Luke.

He barked, “Who hurt you?” sounding so ferocious that Charles lost his hold on his suitcase.

“For fuck sake, Charles,” George continued. “The last time I saw you like this was when Father made you get in the car and leave Keir behind at prep school. You broke your heart. Sobbed like a baby until he turned around to get him, so don’t give me any bollocks about being fine.” He clasped his shoulders even tighter. “No one hurts a Heppel. No one. So tell me.” He enunciated each word clearly. “Who hurt you?”

Charles only had a one-word answer.

“Me.”

* * *

George was a surprisingly good listener,Charles decided. Amazingly so, considering he spent so much of his time shouting.

He chivvied Charles into the house, bypassing the echoing great hall, and taking him straight to his study. It had been tidy the last time Charles saw it. Now it was cluttered with boxes stacked from the doorway to the Chesterfield sofa that had been there since their childhoods.

A Labrador tried to get up from it to greet him, her muzzle almost all white against the coal of her coat, but George stopped her. “You stay put, Agatha. It’s only Charles. No need to act like you’re a guard dog when we both know that you’re toothless.” George stroked the oldest of their dogs, her tail beating a tired tattoo against the scuffed leather, and said, “Yes, I know you missed him. We all did.”

“I find that hard to believe.” Charles crouched by the couch and stroked her too. “But why are you babying her?”

“Because tempus fugit.”

“Oh, no.” His heart clenched. “Is that bad?”

George gave him a sharp look; one that usually meant Charles had said something exasperating. Then it softened too, like the stone outside did in the sunshine, mellowing. “I forgot how you learned virtually zero Latin, despite—”

“I know, I know,” Charles countered, getting the rebuke in before his brother had a chance to. “Despite going to one of the best prep schools in the country.”

“I was going to say, despite having teachers who should have noticed your issues. Who should have tried much harder to help you.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway, tempus fugit means time flies. It seems like only minutes ago that she was a pup. Now her hips are banjaxed.” George stroked the silky furrows of Agatha’s forehead. “But she’s been good company while I look through the papers in these boxes.”

Charles saw how they were stacked high, grimacing at the thought of their contents. “There are loads of them. Are they all from the attics?”

“Yes. And this is nothing. You wait until you see how many Devesh has piled up in the long gallery.”

“Who?”

“The historical adviser I told you about. He’s filled hundreds of them that all need cataloguing. Should keep you busy.” He looked away from the boxes and focussed on Charles. “At least that’s what I had planned until I saw you. Seriously Charles, this working-in-schools lark really isn’t for you, is it?”

Charles tried to summon the energy to argue. All that came out was a flat sounding, “What do you mean?”

“I mean that this is the second time you’ve come home looking like someone kicked the stuffing out of you. And don’t give me any guff about it being your own fault. It’s not on.”

That caught his attention. “It’s not?”

“No it bloody isn’t. So spit it out already. What happened?”

“You really don’t want to know.”

“I do.” George sat next to his dog, his hands gentle on her ears, her eyelids drooping and then closing. “You can tell me.”

Make himself even more vulnerable than he felt already? More vulnerable than when Nathan had tugged on Hugo and he’d followed?

Charles shook his head. “It’s okay. I can sort myself out.” He closed his eyes. Better that than witness George’s judgement. But closing them only meant he saw Hugo instead, seeing Nathan for the first time, his face shattered in a whole new way.

With joy.

With love.

For Nathan, not for him.

“Sort yourself out?” George asked. “The fact that you actually came home suggests otherwise.”

“I did what you told me,” Charles insisted. “The honourable thing. That’s what Heppels do, isn’t it? Keep the promises we make?” He should’ve felt better about that, shouldn’t he?

George nodded. Nothing but Agatha’s soft snores, and the tick of a wall clock, filled a silence that felt weighted, reminding Charles of standing by the desk in here while his father read his school reports.

This too felt like failure.

Finally George said, “You’re not the only one with problems, you know?”

“I didn’t say I had a problem,” Charles snapped.

George gave him a wry look. “Righto.” He held out a hand, tugging Charles to his feet. “Get up.”

“Where are we going?”

“To the same place every Heppel goes to sort their shit out.”

Charles followed him out the way they’d entered, through the tall front doors and down Casterley’s front steps, lagging behind his brother’s long strides. When he bore right, Charles followed.

The lake.

George got to the lake’s edge first where a lone goose honked a greeting. Charles jogged to catch up. “I don’t know why you still think skipping stones is a cure all.”

“What can I say,” George said casting a sly glance Charles’s way as he picked through a handful of small stones. “Winning always makes me feel better.” He sent a flat stone flying across the water with a deft flick of his wrist. It skimmed the surface, bouncing three times before sinking. “There. For every stone you can’t get past three skips, you have to tell me what’s got you looking so wretched.” He held out a hand. “Here, I’ll even help you by letting you have one of these beauties.”

Charles held in a sigh and took one of the stones he offered, then hung his head for a moment, thinking. Did he really want to tell George all the ways he’d stuffed up?

What would he even say?

I was meant to play, that’s all, but my heart didn’t get the message?

“Hurry up, and then we can walk around the lake,” George offered. “Go check out the progress at the folly.”

Charles stopped playing with the stone in his palm. “I thought you wanted me to work on that?”

“Yes, but I wasn’t ever going to leave it all on your shoulders.” He nudged Charles with one of his own. “I just wanted you to take an interest, that’s all, because….” He gazed across the water at where the folly wall was visible. “Skim your stone,” he said gruffly. “If it bounces more than mine, I’ll tell you.”

Charles held his stone between a thumb and finger as George had taught him when he’d been little, the lake ahead a dark pool only broken by lily pads and the slow ripples of that lone goose paddling. The evening sun warmed his shoulders, the view beautiful—perfect—and Hugo’s face came to him again, on seeing Nathan for the first time.

Charles firmed his grip on his stone, closed his eyes, and hurled it.

“What the blistering fuck, Charles?” George said. “How in God’s name did you do that?” Charles opened his eyes to see actual wonder skim George’s face just as his stone must have done the lake’s surface.

“It bounced?”

“Only six times!” And for all that George was bossy, he also was free with his praise. The weight of his arm around Charles felt like a prize. “If that’s what they’ve been teaching you at your new school, maybe it’s not such a waste of your time.”

“I’m not there to learn,” Charles said as George steered him back from the lake’s edge and herded him down the path that led towards the woods on its far side. “I’m meant to help the teacher, not be a student, remember?” But he couldn’t help thinking that he’d been taught one hell of a lesson, and was fiercely glad he’d won George’s challenge and wouldn’t have to confess to it.

He elbowed George in the side as the path took them out of sunshine into shade. “Spill it then. Tell me why me coming home and getting involved was so important.” He more than half expected to hear George spout about estate woes—some new issue with the roof, or with one of the farms that stretched as far as he could see from any of Casterley’s highest windows, but George surprised him into stopping.

“Charles, I need you to know how to take over from me.”

“Me?” He looked back at the house across the lake. “You mean with cataloguing what’s in the attics?”

“No.”

“With the folly renovation then?”

For one of the first times he could remember, Charles watched his oldest brother wrestle with words, finally saying. “No. I need you to know how to take over the whole estate.”

His shock must have shown on his face, a hundred horrible scenarios racing across it, because George quickly said. “Not for any life-threatening reasons.”

“Why then?”

George clenched his jaw in the way he’d taught Charles to mirror, and for the first time, Charles also got to see it waver. “Because I’m taking Fliss for another round of IVF tomorrow.”

“IVF?”

“In vitro fertilisation,” George said as if that was the part of the sentence that mattered.

Charles repeated the aspect that had caught his attention. “Another round?”

George gave up any pretence of a stiff upper lip. He shared a frank look with Charles. A bare one. Raw and honest. “Fifth round now. Not looking too hopeful.” He attempted a smile. “It’s not for lack of practice.” Then he sobered. “It’s been hard, Charles. Persevering hasn’t been easy, not when the process has been so rough on Fliss.”

Charles shook his head. “I had no idea.”

“No one does. The problem doesn’t only lie with her. It’s mine too,” George admitted. “A miracle she got pregnant the first time, with my sperm count. I’m not half as brave as Fliss, so that’s not the sort of detail I wanted to share, to be honest.”

But here he was, doing just that.

George started walking again, the pathway leading them deeper into the wood’s shadows. Charles hurried to catch up. “When was that? The first time?”

“Six years ago.”

Charles thought back. “But that’s when Father stepped back from the estate too, and he and Mother moved into the London house. He put you in charge.” Christ, talk about pressure. On both of them.

“It was better to be busy,” George said. “Taught us a lesson though about not announcing a pregnancy too early. Or any of the other times we were tempted to after that. If Mother had known Fliss was expecting, she would have….” He didn’t need to finish that sentence.

“She would have started planning?” Where George’s bossy genes had come from was no secret.

George huffed again. “Exactly. Bless her, but she would have started planning the baby’s entire future. Will do the moment we announce the good news, if we ever get it. You know, like putting the baby’s name down for a place at our old school.”

“No.” Charles stopped as the path diverged before them, George taking the one to the left that led to the folly. “Please think twice before you send a child there.”

George didn’t snap or bite his head off. He listened, like he used to, Charles remembered, before he’d turned snappy himself, for what now seemed like valid reasons. “It’s made me reconsider a lot, to be honest.”

“Like what?” Charles caught up with him, surprised to find the building that the folly wall hid looked different to the last time he saw it. The smothering ivy had been torn from its walls, and the brambles that had snarled the path to it had been cleared. George had felled trees that had left it in shade too. Now the long, low building shielded by his namesake’s folly glowed, its Bath stone pale gold instead of hidden.

“Like this,” George said. “It’s part of Casterley’s heritage, but I ignored it. Had no true idea about the history behind it.” Then he gestured wider, his hand extended. “I was too busy trying to make the estate pay its way.” He listed responsibilities Charles would have run a mile from, and people who depended on his decisions. “So the last six years or so have been all about getting it on a sound financial footing.”

“I didn’t realise—”

“Oliver and I had it under control.”

But now their middle brother was in Italy and showed no sign of returning.

“And now?”

“And now,” George said, “I need to be pragmatic. I’m fourteen years older than you, Charles.”

“You can still—” Charles cut himself off before suggesting adoption, but George must have expected him to say it.

“We’ve thought about it. This is our last try before exploring other options. It’s too hard on Fliss.” Anguish flickered across his face. “Sometimes the babies stick for a while, you see. That’s been the hardest on her.”

And on him, Charles saw. So hard. “Oh, Georgie,” he said softly. His heart went out to his brother, a man who’d taught him to keep his chin up, but a clenched jaw was no protection from what he and Felicity must have been through.

“So, we’re not ruling out other options, but both of us know how titles work. With no natural heir and both Oliver and I being older, it makes sense that you know more about how things work here. Just in case.”

“I’d run the estate into the ground. You know I can’t—”

“I’ll tell you what I know, Charles.” His brother put an arm across his shoulders again, the evening light finding the silver at his temples, glinting. “I know that none of us loved Casterley enough to share it, apart from you.”

He means with Keir.

“That’s why we’re not ruling out fostering and adoption. It’s also why, when I found out more about the folly’s history, it seemed like the perfect place for you to learn the estate-management ropes.” He hurried to add, “I won’t let the detail swamp you, but I think it’s a project we could manage together, if you’re game? Together we could make it something worth sharing too.”

“Who with?”

“I don’t know yet. That’s one of the reasons I engaged Devesh. He works with estates like ours. Unpicks their history to help plan for the future. I’m open to suggestions, but the folly has definitely been abandoned for too long, in my opinion. It’s past time it was useful. So, what do you think?”

He asked that casually, but Charles saw the start of his jaw firming, expecting him to decline, maybe.

“What did you find out?” Charles asked quickly, before it could set like concrete. “About the folly.”

“Oh. That the first Charles Heppel built it for the same reason you wanted Keir to live here. Your namesake wanted to make a home for someone important to him. The details are in my study. It makes for fascinating reading. You know that he’s the only reason we’re here in the first place, don’t you? He never had children either. That’s why the house and title went to his youngest brother.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Charles said, and maybe he surprised George with his fierceness.

“Hopefully not, but I still think it’s worth you knowing why he built this place.” He checked his watch. “I need to drive Fliss up to town now, ready for the procedure tomorrow.” He almost seemed chagrined. “You didn’t really have to come home, Charles. The adviser’s fine working on his own in the attics. I just wanted to tell you face-to-face that it would mean a lot if we could work on this together,” he said, his face so full of emotion Charles wondered why he hadn’t noticed its absence much sooner. Hadn’t questioned what had weighed on George. Only thought him moody when he’d clearly struggled.

I am a terrible brother.

For once, Charles firmed his jaw with good intentions.

I can do much better.