Every Mother's Son by Val Wood

he?’
    ‘Aye,’ Tom said thoughtfully, ‘so if you’re not careful, Dan, you’ll be mekking yourself redundant!’
    ‘I’ve thought of that too, and I’ve wondered if ’farm is going to keep all of us.’
    ‘Ah, I get it, so you’ll go off and mek your fortune and come home and keep us all in luxury?’
    ‘That’s it,’ Daniel agreed. ‘So you don’t need to worry about your old age, Tom. I’ll tek care of you.’
    ‘Will you find me a nice little wife as well?’ Tom asked. ‘One who can cook and keep house just like your ma?’
    ‘That’d be impossible,’ Daniel said. ‘She’s one in a million. There’s nobody in ’world like my ma.’
    In January at Hart Holme, Charles and Beatrice were preparing to go away. Charles was looking forward to being back at school; he enjoyed the company of his schoolfellows and was doing well with his studies, but when he thought of his future here on the estate and eventually taking over from his father he had a few misgivings as to whether he would settle down in the country. He thought often of the conversation that he and Daniel had had about travelling abroad together and considered that they would be ideal companions. Daniel was practical and easy-going, optimistic and always ready with a quip to lighten a conversation, whereas he regarded himself as more serious, with an interest in people, history and art. Above all, he spoke French and had the option next year of taking another language. As yet, however, he had said nothing to his parents of any of this.
    Beatrice knocked on his bedroom door and he called for her to come in. They both had a special knock to indicate who they were, but they never ever barged in; they’d respected each other’s privacy since childhood.
    Beatrice stretched out on his bed and unfastened her long fair hair from its plait, arranging it across the counterpane. ‘I’ve been sorting out what to take with me,’ she said. ‘I hope I’m doing the right thing. Will I like school, do you think, Charles?’
    ‘I think you will.’ He turned from where he was kneeling looking through his school books. ‘You won’t be bored, at any rate, as you are now with just you and Miss whatsername .’
    Beatrice went through governesses rapidly. None of them could understand her whims, or her desire to be somewhere other than sitting at a desk when the weather was pleasant.
    ‘Can’t be worse, can it?’ she murmured. ‘And I’ll have other girls to talk to and it’s only until the summer, and then I’ll be off to Switzerland to be finished off .’ She laughed at the thought of it. ‘It’s a pity I can’t go straight there, but the Academy insisted I had experience of general schooling rather than just a governess. I wish I’d thought of it before.’ She sighed.
    ‘I suppose they want to be sure you can mingle with other young ladies,’ Charles said vaguely, packing his books into a trunk. ‘Being only with a governess all these years you could be a timid little thing or an unsociable outcast.’
    ‘Which I am.’ She sighed again, and turned sideways so that her head hung over the side of the bed and her hair fanned out like a waterfall to the floor.
    ‘As it is,’ he said, glancing at her, ‘they’re going to wonder who on earth has arrived and turned them upside down.’
    ‘Do you think I’ll ever be considered beautiful?’ she asked, her face turning pink as the blood rushed to her head.
    ‘How would I know?’ he retorted. ‘I’m your brother. You’ll have to ask somebody else. Ask Daniel the next time you see him. He’d tell you.’
    Beatrice hauled herself up again. ‘He wouldn’t know!’ she said scornfully. ‘He wouldn’t notice. No, really, if you were looking at me as if you’d just met me and I were not your sister, what would you think? I mean, would you think, erm, for instance, she’d be quite lovely if her nose were longer … or … shorter or, erm, if her eyes were larger or she were a