Page 52 of The Widower Without a Will
At last, after the sun had already reached its peak, Martha found the crossroads with Charlcombe Lane.On the north side, just as the gravedigger promised, was a silver birch tree, upright and proud even in the cold afternoon wind.The ground beneath it was covered in yellowed grass.Martha took off her gloves and touched first the trunk of the tree, then the ground beneath it, with her bare fingers.
“My darling Lucas, I’m sorry it took me so long to find you.I’m sorry it took me so long to forgive you.”
Sinking against the tree, Martha shut her eyes and, fingers still clinging to the grass, murmured the prayers she used to say with Lucas when putting her boy to bed.She prayed for God to look after him, even though she knew Kenneth taught that there was no place for a soul like Lucas’s in Heaven.She prayed for Lucas to forgive her and for him to somehow, wherever he was, take strength from how much she loved him.
Loved him—and admired him for being brave, even though it had led him to disaster.Lucas had not taken what she and Kenneth told him life offered.He had refused to let others limit his potential.He had followed his heart, and if the rest of the world were as brave as him, then he and Lady Imogen should have had every reason to expect happiness.
Martha knew now the freedom that came from confessing love, even when it wasn’t meant to be, and she was proud Lucas had shown the courage to be true to Lady Imogen no matter the consequences.
Opening her eyes, Martha took in the vista that was Lucas’s dominion.The birch tree was at a curve of Lansdown Hill, which meant that all of Bath was spread below.She could see the glimmering white buildings of Upper Town, the squares and crescents laid out as if she were examining a map, the River Avon cutting like a blue sash across a maiden’s gown.It was a prospect worth paying for, and Lucas had it for all eternity.
“Do you forgive me, Lucas?”she asked aloud.
In response, the wind stilled and the sun, peeking out from between clouds, shone directly on her.
And suddenly she was lighter than she had been in years.She had still lost Lucas—that loss she would never forget—but Martha no longer felt his fist around her heart, dragging her down.
They had forgiven each other; they loved each other; they must both move on.
“What shall I do next?”she asked, but this time, she got no elemental response.
She supposed she could establish herself in Bath.With Lord Preston’s money, she had enough to rent more permanent rooms.She could take the waters, as one was supposed to do in Bath, and play cards with other widows and visit Lucas every week.Perhaps she would even meet another man to love and cherish, one who was kind like Lord Preston but appropriate like Kenneth.
She could also still go live with Georgina.She could rent a room in London.She could go to the Continent!She could go anywhere, do anything, that would not drain her one hundred pounds (now ninety-eight pounds) too quickly.
The one thing she could not do was return to Northfield Hall.
From that weight—heartbreak—she was not yet free.Yet Martha knew that if she waited long enough, and if she designed a firm enough life for herself, one day she would be sitting on a different hill, touched by a different breeze, and discover she no longer mourned the love she might have had with Lord Preston.
Until then, she resolved to live the best life available to her.
It was as she deliberated what “best” might mean to her that she heard the thud of hoofbeats climbing Lansdown Road.She shrank against the silver birch, determined not to be moved no matter who the stranger was, and so it took her a few moments to recognize the rider quickly approaching:
Lord Martin Preston.
Chapter Twenty
FindingMarthahadnotbeen as simple as traveling to her niece’s address in London.Firstly because Martin didn’t have the niece’s address, though a letter for Martha, sans return address, did at last arrive at Northfield.He began by asking Reading Savings Bank if she had cashed his banknote; this was when he discovered she was in Bath, not London.Getting to Bath was easy enough, but her bank was less forthcoming in disclosing her lodgings, and so Martin spent Saturday discreetly inquiring at the Pump Room, the Cross Bath, and the Assembly Hall if anyone had made the acquaintance of Mrs.Bellamy—claiming he had family news he needed to share.
A few people had heard of the fire at Northfield Hall and wanted him to tell it in gory detail, but none of them knew of a recently arrived widow from Berkshire.
On Sunday, he had Boyle begin knocking at lodging houses.He was lucky to guess correctly that she might choose Seymour Street—a modest neighborhood—over the fashionable Sydney Place, and on the fourth door, they found her landlady, a middle-aged woman who clearly knew the entire street’s business.
“Shesaidshe was going to climb to Lansdown Road and Charlcombe Lane, but there is no good reason for a body to do that, so I suspect you’ll find her somewhere near Camden Crescent.”
Martin was too relieved to have found her to realize the significance of a crossroads.He directed Boyle back to his coaching inn and hired a stallion.Knowing that Martha was alone, he did not want to execute the rest of his mission in the company of Boyle.He carried with him the various tokens of apology he had gathered along the way: her niece’s letter; the lace glove she had left behind at Northfield Hall; a book by Thomas Paine, which he’d bought from a bookseller in Bath yesterday after he could not find her.
Martin wasn’t quite sure what he was going to say to her when he found her.No explanation would erase the pain he had caused her, nor any apology give her reason to trust him with her heart again.
He could only hope that her mercy was greater than his failures.
By the time the stallion carried him to the top of the hill, Martin was stiff with nerves.He worried he had missed Martha, or perhaps the landlady had been wrong—but then he spotted her.A silver-haired woman dressed all in black, sitting against the trunk of a tree.
She turned her head to watch him approach, but she did not rise from the ground.Martin slowed his stallion, dismounted, and tied the horse to a fencepost out of kicking range of the birch tree.
“What are you doing here?”Martha asked in the careful, emotionless tone she had used in all their early conversations.
“Your landlady said I would find you here.”He waited for his heart, which was beating triple time, to deliver him the words that would make everything right.He looked at the dirt crossroads and realized the heaviness of where he stood.“Is this where Lucas is buried?”
