Cain His Brother - Anne Perry [137]
Rathbone pursued the line of inquiry.
“Lord Ravensbrook, will you draw for the court the pattern of the relationship between these two brothers as they grew up in your house. Were they educated similarly, for example?”
A bitter smile touched Ravensbrook’s chiseled mouth, then vanished instantly.
“Exactly the same,” he replied. “There was one tutor who taught one set of lessons. It was only their response which was different. In every regard I treated them equally, as did all the rest of the staff.”
“Everyone?” Rathbone affected surprise. “Surely there would have been those who had favorites? As you say, the boys became increasingly dissimilar.”
Caleb leaned forward in the dock, his face eager, listening intently.
Ravensbrook must have been aware of it, but he stood without the slightest movement. He could have been carved in bone. He was a man wading through a nightmare, and it showed in every line and angle of his body.
Enid’s eyes seemed never to leave his face.
“Lord Ravensbrook!” Rathbone felt he needed to attract his attention before there was any purpose in repeating his question.
Ravensbrook looked at him slowly.
“Lord Ravensbrook, you have told us how unlike these two boys became. Surely others who know them must have felt differently towards them? Angus had every virtue: honesty, humility, gratitude, generosity; while Caleb was aggressive, lazy and ungrateful. If that is so, can people truly have regarded them with equal affection?”
“Perhaps I was speaking more for myself than for others,” Ravensbrook conceded grudgingly, his face stiff. “I did my best not to permit it, but it may have existed in the village. I had no control over that.”
“The village?” Rathbone had omitted to ask Ravensbrook where the brothers had spent their childhood. He should have realized it would not have been in London.
“My country home in Berkshire,” Ravensbrook explained, his face suddenly white. “It was a better atmosphere for them than the city. Learned to ride, hunt, fish.” He took a deep breath. “Manly pursuits. Learned a bit about the land, and a man’s responsibilities towards his fellows.”
There was a murmur of assent from one or two people in the room. Enid looked puzzled, Caleb bitter.
“A very privileged childhood, by the sound of it.” Rathbone smiled.
“I gave them all I could,” Ravensbrook said without expression, except perhaps for a certain gravity which might have been sadness, or merely an effect of the light in his impassive face, with its patrician features and dark, very level eyes under their short brows.
“You speak of a jealousy growing between them,” Rathbone continued. He was battling with a witness who was all but hostile, and it was like drawing teeth. He could understand it. Having to expose his most private family life to the gaze of the public in general, and the seekers of sensation in particular, was something no decent man would wish, and to one like Milo Ravensbrook it was like facing enemy fire. But if there was to be justice it was unavoidable, not only punishment for Caleb, but a decent acknowledgment for Genevieve and her children. “Would you give the court an example of any evidences of these you can recall? Instances of behavior, resentments, quarrels …”
Ravensbrook looked somewhere over the heads of the crowd.
“I should prefer not to.”
“Naturally,” Rathbone commiserated. “No one wishes to recall such events, but I am afraid it is necessary if we are to discover what is the truth of this present tragedy. I am sure you wish that.” He was not perfectly sure. Perhaps Ravensbrook would rather it went unknown, and could fade from memory as a mystery. But he could not say so.
There were several minutes of silence. One of the jurors coughed and produced a large handkerchief. Another shifted his weight as though embarrassed. The judge stared at Ravensbrook. Ebenezer Goode looked first at Ravensbrook, then at Rathbone, his face expectant.
But it was Caleb who broke the tension.
“Forgotten, have you?” he called down, his lips drawn back in something close to a snarl. “Forgotten