Page 49 of The Widower Without a Will
He awaited their judgment.It would be swift, he was sure.He had raised them to know right from wrong, and everything he had just confessed was wrong.
Would they banish him from the estate?Bar him from the London townhouse?Force him to beg the hospitality of one of his parliamentary allies?
Whatever they decided, Martin would abide it.After everything he had done, he could not earn back their trust, much less expect forgiveness.The only course available to him was to accept his punishment and hope it might reshape his character in however many years he had remaining in this life.
“But, Papa,” Sophia said, “You didn’t mean to.You didn’tintendto burn down the house.You only meant to burn some papers.”
Her eyes were so wide and uncertain, like when she had been a little girl asking why the stars only came out at night.Martin replied harshly, “What did I expect when I started throwing rum in the hearth?”
“You didn’t expect this.”
“Anyone could lose control of their fire,” Ellen said.“It was an accident, Papa.”
“An accident that wouldn’t have happened if not for me.”Martin didn’t understand why this, of all his errors, they wanted to excuse.“I shouldn’t have been drunk.I shouldn’t have been burning my letters.I shouldn’t have been doing…any of the things I’ve been doing.”He turned to Benjamin and Nate, who might have remained in ignorant bliss, and confessed: “I was carrying on an affair with Mrs.Bellamy while she stayed here.And I have written a will that leaves all my fortune to a trust for Northfield Hall, instead of any money going to you and your sisters.I have failed your sisters deeply.I have failed everyone deeply.I have been too wrapped up in my own ambitions to be a proper father or even a proper politician.And, my darlings—” His eyes fell on Ellen now, that first child who had taught him what it was to be a father, and her sisters beyond, and he remembered what it was like to hold them as infants, to offer their tiny fingers a grip as they learned to walk, to watch with worry as they grew into creatures that resembled adults.“I’m so sorry.I am sorry for every time I have failed you.I wish I could promise to do better, but it turns out everything I touch turns to ash.”
All week long, he had managed to put one foot in front of the other by flogging himself with the evidence of what he had wrought.Suddenly, a wave of sorrow drowned his guilt and shame, and Martin could barely breathe for the pain.
Across the table, Caroline covered her mouth with her hand.
Ellen, rising from her place on the bench, came round the table and draped her warm arm across his back.“You raised us, Papa, and we are not ash.”
“In spite of me,” he said.“Sophia needed me, and I hardly even knew it!I should have ridden overnight through the rain to get to you.Why didn’t I come when you asked me to?”
Sophia reached across the table and took one of his hands between her two soft palms.“I did not tell you how desperately I wanted your help.”
“You were accused of a felony.You shouldn’t have needed to tell me.”
“And it injured me, Papa,” she said, smiling, “but I did not turn to ash.You may make it up to me by forgiving yourself now, for I surely forgive you.”
He clung to her hand, cherished Ellen’s arm around him, and still did not believe he deserved them.
“Inspecting our recoveries yesterday, Mr.Chow pointed out a crate of things you rescued from the Hall yourself,” Nate said.“I expected to find estate records or perhaps Mama’s letters, but instead it was a rather surprising assortment from the garden drawing room.”
“I only had time to fill my arms the once.”Martin wished he could have saved Lolly’s letters or the collection of illustrated books they had used to teach the children to read—or the entire Hall.
At least Martha’s glove had been in his pocket, so he had not lost his only memento of her to his inferno.
“And you saved that terrible watercolor Sophia did of the pond?”
Martin squeezed that daughter’s hand.“Who else would think to reflect the sunset in the pond by painting the water pink?”
“I am a visionary, Nathaniel,” Sophia gloated.
“Yes, well, I can understand why you decided on the pens Ellen made you, but why keep the letter I wrote from Freetown about their record-keeping?That was surely the most boring thing I ever sent.”
“It was the first one I received after almost a year of your letters being delayed on some ship that went off course.I had begun to worry you were dead.”That episode of Martin’s life—the months of wondering if he would ever hear of Nate, much lessfromhim, again—was seared onto his heart, and he was surprised Nate didn’t realize it.Until, of course, he reflected that he had never told Nate about it.
“We had all begun to worry,” Caroline said, a little of the anger that she usually reserved for Martin now directed at her brother.“Most people who go to Sierra Leone die there.”
“Yes, why should you be an exception?”Benjamin teased.Winking at his sister, he said, “Sophia had already begun forging your last will and testament so that she could receive whatever prize money you had earned.”
“Well, here I am, alive and having forfeited the prize money as a disgraced officer.”
“Did you save anything else, Papa?”Caroline asked, her eyes fixed on her plate.
Martin wondered what she hoped he had saved.Doubtless there were dozens of items from the Hall that she considered useful or important that he had left to the blaze.He had no option but to share the truth: “The portrait of Mama with you five, a book of Irish poetry that Benjamin once gifted me, and your essays.”
“Did Benjamin write a good inscription for the poetry book at least, or is it only meaningful because you know it came from him?”Nate teased.
