women skated over him as if he were some kind of invalid. Herne Bay was peculiarly popular for the raising of children, to the point where it was jokingly referred to as Baby Bay, and his passage along South Parade by day was always through a crowd of nannies and nursery maids pushing prams or overseeing the unsteady walking of small persons in their charge. The cries of children at play on the shingled shore below often seemed to carry an edge of mockery. There goes the idle man! The useless one!
He sat in the conservatory, methodically reading the newspaper, while Winnie retreated to her desk and the maid cleared away breakfast, then he walked briskly from one end of the seafront to the other before making his way to the station. He was early, as was his habit. As he waited for the London train to pull in, he realised it was with something like brotherly affection.
He had never warmed to Robert, and had yet to meet the mysterious Barrington, but over the months he had surprised himself by becoming almost fond of Frank. Frank the Bloodless. Frank would have been mortified to know it, but Harry felt sorry for him. Being surrounded by people so much less clever than he was, he must have felt like a member of a different race, a different species even. What Harry had first taken for coldness, he had come to see was an odd mixture of patience, incomprehension and extreme discomfort. Frank could decline any number of Greek verbs and rattle off a sequence of prime numbers, but he could never anticipate the illogical choices of ordinary humans so was forever being made to feel odd by comparison, a situation little aided by his inability to dissemble when politeness required it, or to talk of unimportant matters simply to put others at their ease. Harry was shy but Frank was awkward, which Harry considered gave them a kind of kinship.
Frank would seem to have recognised this, and warmed to Harry in turn. In his odd, prickly way. A couple of weeks into his engagement to Winnie, Harry had been summoned to Frank’s chambers, ostensibly for lunch without Robert, who was off visiting clients in the country, but actually for a bewilderingly candid discussion about money.
Tipped off by a friend in the City, Frank had details of a company about to be floated that he knew for a fact was a sure thing. He was investing a parcel of Mrs Wells’s less lively savings in it and did not want Harry to miss out. Harry didn’t feel he could sell any of his property holdings, but much of his capital was invested in bonds and shares he could easily trade in. At Frank’s urging he did just that, sinking a third of his capital in the new share issue.
‘You won’t be sorry,’ Frank told him. ‘If I had half your money, I’d do the same. Within six months you’ll have doubled your investment and you can take half out again and reinvest if you’re feeling cautious.’
Frank did not need to do this. It was a kindness, coolly delivered but a kindness nonetheless. The shares had performed just as well as promised.
With the candour that being married enabled, he and Winnie had often discussed her brothers’ marriage prospects. Robert, they both suspected, modelled himself on his late father, and probably the King, and had a weakness for actresses. Barrington was a mystery, although it was an open secret that morals and manners were more relaxed in the remoter outposts of empire, so it was quite possible he had come to some unofficial, even tribal, arrangement that could never be acknowledged at home. But Frank was the greatest challenge.
His sisters, rather meanly, had confected the ideal girl for him, who was an utterly humourless suffragette type called Elfine. They would amuse themselves at parties by competing as to who could first spot a girl in glasses – the thicker-lensed the better – and cry, ‘Oh do look. It’s Elfine!’
Harry feared the truth would be sadder and involve a misalliance. The Franks of this world rarely had the
He sat in the conservatory, methodically reading the newspaper, while Winnie retreated to her desk and the maid cleared away breakfast, then he walked briskly from one end of the seafront to the other before making his way to the station. He was early, as was his habit. As he waited for the London train to pull in, he realised it was with something like brotherly affection.
He had never warmed to Robert, and had yet to meet the mysterious Barrington, but over the months he had surprised himself by becoming almost fond of Frank. Frank the Bloodless. Frank would have been mortified to know it, but Harry felt sorry for him. Being surrounded by people so much less clever than he was, he must have felt like a member of a different race, a different species even. What Harry had first taken for coldness, he had come to see was an odd mixture of patience, incomprehension and extreme discomfort. Frank could decline any number of Greek verbs and rattle off a sequence of prime numbers, but he could never anticipate the illogical choices of ordinary humans so was forever being made to feel odd by comparison, a situation little aided by his inability to dissemble when politeness required it, or to talk of unimportant matters simply to put others at their ease. Harry was shy but Frank was awkward, which Harry considered gave them a kind of kinship.
Frank would seem to have recognised this, and warmed to Harry in turn. In his odd, prickly way. A couple of weeks into his engagement to Winnie, Harry had been summoned to Frank’s chambers, ostensibly for lunch without Robert, who was off visiting clients in the country, but actually for a bewilderingly candid discussion about money.
Tipped off by a friend in the City, Frank had details of a company about to be floated that he knew for a fact was a sure thing. He was investing a parcel of Mrs Wells’s less lively savings in it and did not want Harry to miss out. Harry didn’t feel he could sell any of his property holdings, but much of his capital was invested in bonds and shares he could easily trade in. At Frank’s urging he did just that, sinking a third of his capital in the new share issue.
‘You won’t be sorry,’ Frank told him. ‘If I had half your money, I’d do the same. Within six months you’ll have doubled your investment and you can take half out again and reinvest if you’re feeling cautious.’
Frank did not need to do this. It was a kindness, coolly delivered but a kindness nonetheless. The shares had performed just as well as promised.
With the candour that being married enabled, he and Winnie had often discussed her brothers’ marriage prospects. Robert, they both suspected, modelled himself on his late father, and probably the King, and had a weakness for actresses. Barrington was a mystery, although it was an open secret that morals and manners were more relaxed in the remoter outposts of empire, so it was quite possible he had come to some unofficial, even tribal, arrangement that could never be acknowledged at home. But Frank was the greatest challenge.
His sisters, rather meanly, had confected the ideal girl for him, who was an utterly humourless suffragette type called Elfine. They would amuse themselves at parties by competing as to who could first spot a girl in glasses – the thicker-lensed the better – and cry, ‘Oh do look. It’s Elfine!’
Harry feared the truth would be sadder and involve a misalliance. The Franks of this world rarely had the
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