Page 34 of The Widower Without a Will
“He is out of his pain at last,” the widow replied, patting Caroline’s back fondly.“I take consolation in knowing that he is free of mortal burdens.Perhaps he is even now learning the answers to the eternal questions that always intrigued him.”
“Oh yes, or at the very least, I hope he is finding out whether pigs really do ever fly.”Withdrawing from the embrace, Caroline turned to Martin.“Papa, it is so sad.”
“Uncle Maulvi loved you very much,” he said, hoping they were the right words.
Her eyes shone bright with tears.“He always knew exactly the right advice to give, didn’t he?”
“He took great joy in being a mentor to you and your siblings.”
She nodded, frustration sneaking into her expression, though Martin couldn’t imagine why.Was he not agreeing with everything she said?And was this not Maulvi’s deathbed—couldn’t the man have peace from Preston dramaticsnow, if not in life?
“And you loved him,” Caroline prompted.
“Yes.”Martin looked at the sheet covering the body of the man who was his closest friend.“I am glad to have been able to visit him since returning from London.We had some good final conversations.”
He discovered he wasn’t quite able to get the words out, for they provoked a terrible wave of sadness that closed his throat.Instinctively, he turned away.Mrs.Bellamy touched his elbow.“Mr.Maulvi meant the world to his lordship.”
Her fingers seared through his jacket.Of course, Martin wanted to lean into her arms, but the gesture—the words implying she had private knowledge of his feelings—made his heart stutter with horror.She might as well have tried to kiss him right there in front of Caroline and the Widow Croft.
He withdrew from her touch.Summoning centuries of decorum, he returned to practicalities: “Caroline, would you please write to inform your siblings?Mrs.Croft will host an assembly to honor Mr.Maulvi in a month’s time, and she hopes they may join us there.”
His daughter looked at him with some new, terrible emotion in her eyes.Horror, no doubt.He did not concern himself about it.That had always been Maulvi’s advice:let themfeel what they were going to feel, whethertheywere his grown children or the peers of the realm.So long as Martin was honest and true, he could not worry about the judgment of those who did not understand him.
And, his affair with Mrs.Bellamy excepted, he remained honest and true.
“Yes, Papa,” Caroline said, “but first I shall sit with Aunt Croft for a while.”
“Fine.”Martin suddenly couldn’t stand to be in that room full of women—women, and Maulvi’s body.“I shall find some men to move the…to move...Mrs.Bellamy, will you return to Northfield in the carriage?”
She should not come, not after that display, yet he could not help hoping she would say, “Yes, indeed, I must return with you.”Otherwise, he would be alone in the carriage with Maulvi’s body.He might forget thathewas still alive.
But Mrs.Bellamy had good sense.She had stepped away from him already, and she did not even look at him as she replied, “No, sir, I’ll stay here with Mrs.Croft.”
Which meant Martin had no choice:
He left her behind.
Marthadidnotlikehow Lord Preston took his leave.She did not like the way he jerked away from her touch as if her fingers were hot irons; she did not like how he and Caroline had almost erupted into another argument; and most of all, she did not like being left behind at Mrs.Croft’s.
It was her duty to be there—as much in her role as Kenneth’s late wife as in her own right as a community member.When a person died, Martha was one of the people who swooped in to keep their household running through their grief.
But she did not actually know Mrs.Croft well, and the room was already full of people seeing to her needs far better than Martha could.The farm women who had emptied the tub returned, and they took charge of cleaning the room and serving everyone tea.The boy, a nephew of Mrs.Croft, offered scones before scarfing them down himself.Caroline took the place of honor, pulling up a stool beside Mrs.Croft and sharing stories about “Uncle Maulvi.”
Knowing Lord Preston as she did now, Martha couldn’t help but find surprising the familiarity between Caroline and Mrs.Croft, the latter of whom spoke with a loose Berkshire accent and likely couldn’t name a member of the peerage outside the Preston family.Martha had previously assumed that this was a result of Lord Preston’s desire to break down all invisible barriers between men; but she had discovered these past two months that, in fact, he stood on ceremony more often than not.
Such as when he took his leave so awkwardly, backing away from her as if being in proximity to her would stain his reputation.
How, then, had he raised his daughter to call his steward Uncle and to marry below her station?Had Lady Preston been the radical class breaker?Or did it have nothing to do with the parents and everything to do with Caroline as an original?
Retreating to the little kitchen where a batch of bread dough sat rising in a bowl, Martha did her best to make herself useful, tidying up here and there.She hadn’t any right to go back with Lord Preston anyhow.The burial was, as Mrs.Croft had said, the man’s sphere.
Martha had once understood the custom that kept women away from the graveside.She hadn’t wanted to see her father closed up in a coffin, nor did she think she could bear to watch it lowered into the hole.In fact, she had nightmares about graves that had no bottom, whose darkness went on and on through layers of dirt and tree roots and rock so that the coffin fell directly into Hell, with no chance of redemption.
If she had those fears without ever seeing a burial, she used to reason, it was a good idea to keep her and all other tender-hearted women from seeing what actually happened.
Then Lucas died.Ordestroyed himself, as the inquest described it.Murdered himself, as one of the Bath newspapers reported.
Of all the bodies to avoid, Martha knew it should be his: because he was her son, because he had done something terrible, and because through the act of shooting himself in the head, he had made his body a hellish monster.Yet, when Kenneth told her what Lucas had done, she had been consumed with a need to hold her son one last time.Whatever was left of him.She wanted to hug him.She wanted to bathe him.She wanted to dress him in his final clothes and be the last one to touch him before he descended into the cold grave.
