Page 48 of The Widower Without a Will
Perhaps London was the best place for him.After all, this catastrophe was not some freak of nature: it was Martin’s doing.His myopic, self-pitying doing.
As they rested for luncheon on the seventh day—the whole family huddling together in the dining hall along with the estate’s laborers—Ellen said, “At least out of this disaster, we are all together.That is a blessing we can count, isn’t it?”
Her siblings agreed cheerfully.This plunged Martin deeper into his brackish feelings, for after all, of all people, shouldn’thehave been delighted to have all his children together, and to be sitting squished between the happy bodies of his four- and five-year-0ld grandsons?
None of his daughters had mentioned their last argument to him.He wondered if Caroline had told Nate—always her closest ally—that Martin had been misusing Martha.He suspected Sophia had told Benjamin about the will.Yet his children avoided any difficult subject, had not even asked him how the fire began, and it all made Martin feel so much worse.Clearly, they had no hope that they would get an honest answer from him.Or perhaps they had no intention of giving him their absolution.These topics were too dangerous because they were too hurtful, and so they must avoid them.
He wondered what Martha would think when she heard of the fire.She might have heard already: he had made Northfield Hall famous, sometimes infamous, in Britain, and the London newspapers must by now have the news of its ruin.
She, too, shouldn’t forgive him, and so he hoped she would turn away from the news thinking,He deserved it.
Except he also couldn’t help but want her to arrive in a carriage, just like his children had, and say,You didn’t deserve this.
“I feel so silly.I’m sad as if someone died,” Sophia said, “but it was only a building.I suppose I’m still grieving Uncle Maulvi.”
Ellen put an arm around her sister.“It was more than a building.We all have so many memories there, and now we have lost it.You’re not silly for feeling sad.”
“I’ve seen sailors bawl when their ship was retired,” Nate agreed.“It isn’t a death, exactly, but certainly, we can never go back now.”
“Nobody died,” Martin heard himself say.He wished himself silent, but instead, he growled defensively: “Do not dishonor people whohavedied by comparing our loss of a fancy house with the loss of life.”
Caroline glared at him.“None of us are saying it is the same thing.We are only saying we are sad.Is it dishonorable now to be sad?”
“No one was even injured.”Thank God for that—Martin didn’t know how he would face each day were he responsible for hurting someone.
“And that is a miracle, but it has no bearing on the fact that we lost our home.”
Martin snarled: “Your home?As I recall, you abandoned it to live in Thatcham.”
Caroline reared back to defend herself, but Ellen sliced a hand between them as if to break up a fight.“Really, Papa!There is no need to be churlish.”
He could not refute the charge, but neither could he contain himself.On either side of him, Patrick and Rian leaned away, as if even they knew he was not to be trusted.Lydia took their hands and, making an excuse that they needed the privy, led them from the table.
Benjamin, the peacemaker, said, “It was a terrible accident, and Papa did the best he could.We can be very thankful that no one was injured, especially since it took so long to put out the fire.”
“Yes, we can be,” Ellen agreed, giving each of her siblings her “mother”look until they all nodded obediently.“And of all of us, Papa has lost the most.As he said, he is the only one of the family still living here.”
“Then shouldn’t he be mourning this accident with the rest of us, instead of making us feel like spoiled children?”Caroline said.
Nate and Sophia both tried to speak to reel her in, but Martin barely heard them.His heart was beating too fast as his mouth opened to say: “It wasn’t an accident.”
His children stared at him—and even though they each possessed individual faces and features, in that moment, they all looked exactly like Lolly.Softly, Benjamin repeated: “It wasn’t an accident?”
“It was my fault.”
“Your fault?”Caroline echoed, her voice sharp.
The confession was beginning to sting—a sting Martin deserved.He clarified: “I started it.”
Sophia, gripping Caroline’s hand, asked with all the disapproval of the governess she had once been, “Why would you start a fire?”
“I was burning letters.I poured my rum on the fire to make it hotter, and then the next thing I knew, it began spreading across the room.”He looked at his fingers, pale and useless on the table.“I tried to stop it, but it spread so fast.”
His children were so silent that the noise of the eating laborers—all those people who trusted him wrongly!—filled his ears.
“Where did you get rum?”Ellen asked.Her voice was as thin and desperate as it had been twelve years ago when she had discovered his scheme to sell Northfield Hall linens in London.After all, rum was a product of sugar plantations, and Martin had raised her to eschew anything touched by the sugar trade.“How often do you drink rum?”
“It was an old bottle from my father.I don’t know why I saved it all these years.I never meant to drink it.Everyone had left.I’ve done everything wrong.So I decided I might as well drink it and burn all the letters…all the papers I didn’t need anymore.I wanted to burn everything.”He couldn’t look at his children.“And that’s what I ended up doing.”
