When the Least Favourite Doesn't Care

Building a Bridge

Now I turn to you, dear stranger, and ask if you think me a spoilt brat or if you agree that Grace did not want me? I guess, these days, Grace would be diagnosed with post-natal depression and would receive help to get through the dark patches. I don't blame her for her treatment of me and I do not envy my siblings for receiving more love from her than I ever did; I am not really the resentful type. However, I often wish Grace had been able to love me, if only a little bit.

Truth be told, I believe Grace found loving me difficult because every time she saw me she saw Gerald, whereas Gerald failed to accept me as his because that would mean realising he had lost the only woman he would ever truly love. I was the victim of my parents love though neither ever recognised the harm they were causing me. If I got into a fight at school Grace would say: 'Just because you will be a Lord one day doesn't mean you can act better than everyone now.' She would never listen to why I got into the fight in the first place, she just assumed I had been too much of a snob and so the beating was justified. On the other hand, if I acted like the child I was and the not the gentleman I should have been, Gerald would make comments such as: 'you can never make a stone sparkle like a diamond'.

Life was tough, so I became tougher.

I learned how to please both parents just enough so they were unable to criticise me for being too much like my other parent. This annoyed both Gerald and Grace immensely because their favourite thing to do was complain about each other. By the time I entered into my teens I knew how to get exactly what I wanted from both my parents and I was not afraid to take complete advantage of this. This enabled me to find some semblance of happiness and so life was fine, mostly.

Grace became quite unwell during the winter when I was seventeen. It had been clear for a number of years that she intended to pass the business on to Pru and John yet she feared she would not live long enough to teach them the ropes so taught me so that I, in turn, could teach them should she not get better.

On the days she was able to get out of bed she would take me to the factory and show me how each machine worked. On the days where she had hardly any strength we would look over paperwork and she would explain the relationships with other companies, who were good to work with and who would just cause trouble and never pay the bill. She would talk about the staff and what was important to each person.

At first we both felt uneasy about the amount of time we were spending together yet we both grew to enjoy working alongside each other, so much so that when Grace was well again, we continued to work together.

It became clear to me that Grace was very good and building relationships with companies and organising the workload. I, it turned out, was good with numbers and, after illustrating a few changes that could be made, I saved the business enough money to enable it to invest in some new equipment. This, in turn, led to an increase in productivity so more work could be accepted and, after a year, there were four extra jobs created in the factory. I also developed a keen interest in the machines themselves and there was nothing I enjoyed more than when a machine broke and required fixing. In contrast to how clean and proper I had to be when being a gentleman, when I was fixing a machine I could get thoroughly filthy.

It was during this period that Grace and I developed a relationship of sorts. We came to know one another and, for the first time in my life, Grace was able to see herself in me.