Page 50 of The Widower Without a Will
But Caroline literally elbowed her brother out of her way as she leaned forward to address Martin.“I didn’t know you had my essays.”
“Of course I do.You’re a very fine writer.”She had begun writing them the year of her marriage, and the next year published a collection with one of the radical Manchester presses.
Martin had ordered a hundred copies and stocked them in the London bookshops.
Perhaps he should have told Caroline, but she hadn’t toldhimabout the book, leaving him to find out from Ellen.Martin had been afraid Caroline would find fault with him for purchasing her essays, and so he had done it anonymously, just as she published them without her name.
But now he was confessing his crimes, he decided he might as well confess to this, too.“I am your distributor in London.”
She paled, and Martin braced himself for the punishment he deserved.“Youare?I thought it must be one of the printers, like Mr.Carlile.Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I feared you would hate me for it.”
“Why would I hate you for that?”
Martin felt that soul-piercing sorrow again.“You seem to hate everything I do.”
When he looked at her, he saw his own pain mirrored in her eyes.
“I have failed you the most frequently and most deeply,” he amended, “and I understand why you hate me.I hope you know that Iamtrying, Caro.I may never succeed, but I am trying to be the man you want me to be.”
“I know,” she said, and she looked down again.
Benjamin squeezed Martin’s forearm.“You are being too harsh on yourself, Papa.To be human is to fail.You have failed while trying to be a good man.None of us fault you for that.”
“I was not trying to be good when I started the fire.I was not trying to be good when I took up with Mrs.Bellamy.”He was not trying to be good now, quarreling with his children instead of accepting their kindness.
“And what is this business with Mrs.Bellamy?Did you deceive her about your intentions?”Benjamin asked.
“No.”He didn’t think he could have deceived Martha if he had tried; she somehow knew his heart better than he did.
“Do you love her?”Ellen asked.
“It hardly matters after the way I…I sent her away.”
“But do you love her?”Caroline asked, her voice soft.
He had lied about this before, even to himself, and he would have lied again, except sometime in the course of this confession, his heart had broken free of its cage.“Yes, I do.”
Ellen’s arm around his shoulders tightened.Sophia’s palms around his hand squeezed.Benjamin’s hand on his forearm gripped more firmly.Nate let out a sigh.And across the table, Caroline’s eyes shone.“That’s all that matters, Papa.I know we are supposed to learn from you, but haven’t you learned anything about love from us?”
“We’ve each chosen love, after all, and I’d say it has worked out,” Nate added.
“Aren’t you proud of us?”Sophia asked.
“Aren’t you happy for us?”Benjamin said.
He was.Of course he was.Did they even need to ask?
“You needn’t cling to Mama’s memory,” Ellen said.“If you want to marry again, you should.”
“She is a clergyman’s widow.”
“And therefore she is not the right class?”Caroline cried.
Martin remembered Martha on the gig beside him, letting him parse his complicated thoughts on the order of their society.And how natural it had felt whenever she sat with him in his study, going over work for the estate.And that memory from the carriage he had promised to keep forever, when they had been nothing but two people in giddy lust for each other.
He answered Caroline: “Therefore, I would be a hypocrite to wed her when I tried to stop you from marrying Eddie.”
