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‘He will be fine,’ Briggs said. ‘But you must...’
But then William shattered. He burst into tears, leaning against Beatrice as he wept.
‘William,’ she said, bringing him down to the blanket and holding him to her chest. ‘It’s all right. It’s all right.’
‘Don’t cry,’ Briggs said, his breath coming in shallow, angry bursts.
If the other children were to see William weeping, it would only make things more difficult for him later. He could not be remembered as that boy. And this was the exact thing he had feared. That he would find censure among other children, and it would be impossible for him to be known as anything else. And he might not be so lucky as to find a friend like Hugh who would come alongside him, who would be patient with him when he had outbursts. Who would...
‘If you do not wish for other children to pour scorn on you, then you must learn to speak only of things that they care about. You must listen to them, not speak endlessly about things that they do not care about.’
‘Briggs,’ she said. ‘He’s a boy, and he loves those cards. The other boys, they were the ones at fault.’
Beatrice was angry at him. This she could not understand.
This part of him.
And what he knew.
Because of course she could not. No one could understand him quite so deeply.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Briggs said. ‘It does not matter if they were at fault, and they were. They have the manners of jackals, and their fathers should beat them. But it does not change the fact that William’s tears will only make the children think less of him. It does not change the fact that... The children will do what they do. And if you are different in any way, they will exploit that difference. They will make you miserable. They will make you wish you had not been born. And so you must learn to conceal it.
‘We will finish our picnic,’ Briggs said.
William was still weeping piteously against Beatrice. ‘William,’ he said sharply. ‘We will finish our picnic.’
He had successfully startled his son into stopping his tears.
‘You cannot let them see that they have made you hurt.’
‘But it hurts,’ William said.
‘It does not matter. They do not deserve your tears. Remember that. Nor do they deserve to hear about your cards.’
They ate, but he took no pleasure in the taste of the food. Instead, he was consumed by his outrage, and the memories that it began to stir up inside him.
* * *
By the time the afternoon had worn on, everyone had left some of the incident behind. And he found some space to breathe around it.
But by the time they got back to the town house, he felt restless. And when William went to the nursery, he dragged Beatrice to her bedchamber, and unleashed more of the same on her from the night before. He took his pleasure, and she took hers, and when they were through, she laid her head on his lap, and spoke softly. ‘Surely you cannot mean to have William never mention the things that he loves to the other children. You made it sound as if it was something he should be ashamed of.’
‘It is not that he should be ashamed,’ Briggs said. ‘I am not ashamed of him. I’m not. But it does not matter if I am the proudest father in all the world, children will only see difference. And they will... Attack it like savages. It is who they are. It is what they do. They cannot help it, I suspect. It is innate. To make for the vulnerable, to make them wish they had not been born.’
He could remember being shoved to the ground by an older boy in the village when he’d been a lad. The boy’s mother had been horrified because of who Briggs was, not because of the violence itself.
But the other boy had not cared who he was.
Imbecile.
He’d spat the word at Briggs.
All because he had asked Briggs about the weather and Briggs had explained the ideal climate for orchids. On and on he’d talked until the other boy’s fist had hit his face.
It had connected in his head, the weather and the flowers. He understood now why it had not to the other boy. But not then. Then he had not understood at all.
‘Briggs...’
