Chapter 35
“Father?”
Nathaniel didn’t look up from the drink he held in his hand. It made his heart turn over to hear Colin address him as Father, and on any other day he thought he would have been happy about it.
“Yes?” he replied. “Do you need something?”
Colin hesitated for a moment. “Is it all right for me to be in here?”
Nathaniel didn’t know what answer he wanted to give.
His study was a sacred space, one that he had always kept to himself.
Even the staff didn’t come here unless they had special permission.
He allowed it to be cleaned once a week, only when he had given instructions to do so.
The rest of the time, it was his own private space, his sanctuary.
But could he really insist that Colin not come into his space? Colin was a child, after all. It wasn’t right to have a space that you didn’t allow your own child to enter.
Or was it? What did he know about such things?
Dorothy would have known.
“You can be here,” he told Colin. “Don’t touch any of the books, all right?”
Colin nodded and climbed up carefully to sit in the armchair by the window. For a long moment, he was quiet, watching Nathaniel as he flipped through the pages of the book on the desk in front of him.
Finally, he spoke. “It’s been a long time since our picnic,” he said.
“About ten days.” Had it really been so little time? Colin was right, it felt much longer. Everything had changed so rapidly since then. He remembered sitting with Dorothy and feeling as if they were just at the start of something. A friendship, yes, but something.
Now everything was over.
It was his own fault. He had kissed her when she had made it clear that she wanted nothing more than friendship.
And then, in the wake of that error in judgment, he had compounded things by asking her to marry him.
Could there possibly have been a more foolish move?
There was no way for them to return to the safe ground of friendship.
Not that that ground had ever been particularly safe to begin with.
Colin swung his legs back and forth vigorously for a few moments and then stopped all at once as if something had occurred to him. “We should have another picnic,” he announced.
“Mmm,” Nathaniel said. “We could do that if you wanted to, I suppose.”
“And we should invite Dorothy!”
Ah. Of course that was where this had been heading. He had been a fool not to realize that Colin would start asking for Dorothy again soon. He adored her. It was a miracle they had made it this long without him trying to have her over again.
“I don’t know that Dorothy wants to come to another picnic,” Nathaniel said, hoping to distract Colin from this line of inquiry.
It didn’t work, of course. “She didn’t like the picnic?” His face fell.
“I think she had a nice time,” Nathaniel assured Colin, wishing they could talk about anything else in the world. “I know that she liked meeting you, Colin. She liked you quite a bit. She told me that.”
“I liked her too,” Colin said. “When is she going to come back and see me again?”
“I…well, I don’t know, Colin.”
“But she is coming back, right?” Colin pressed. “Because you promised me. You told me that she would.”
“I know what I said. Colin, maybe you shouldn’t be in here after all right now.”
“But you said I could be,” Colin protested. “You just said it was all right for me to be here.”
“I know, but I really need to get some work done.”
“You’re not doing any work,” Colin countered. “You’re just sitting there. Maybe you’re avoiding me.”
“I’m not avoiding you, Colin,” Nathaniel sighed, even though he was. “I need some time to myself. Sometimes adults need that.”
“Is that why Dorothy isn’t coming over? Because she needs time to herself?”
“Yes, perhaps,” Nathaniel said. “That could be the reason. And if it is, the right thing for us to do is give her that time.”
“But how long will it be?” Colin demanded. “I want to see her again. And you promised. And she promised. You both told me that we’d see each other again soon, and now it’s been a very long time, and I want to see her now. You should send for her.”
“I’m not going to do that.”
“Do it,” Colin insisted. “I want her to come. You have to.”
Nathaniel looked up. “You can’t speak to me that way, Colin,” he said severely. “It isn’t your decision to make. I’m not going to have Dorothy over here right now, and that’s all there is to it. So, you might as well accept it.”
Colin’s lip quivered. “You’re mean,” he whispered.
Something broke inside Nathaniel. “Colin…”
“No. I don’t want to talk to you anymore. You were right.” Colin’s eyes had filled with tears. “I shouldn’t have come in here in the first place. I don’t know why I thought you would care. You don’t care about anything. You didn’t even know Mother.”
He turned and ran from the room.
Nathaniel winced at the accusation, listening as Colin’s footsteps pounded up the hall. He didn’t know what to do. Would the right thing be to go after the boy? Or should he allow him to have some time to himself? Maybe Colin, too, needed his space.
He buried his face in his hands. He had felt as though he was making so much progress with Colin lately.
He’d thought they were getting close to really being a family.
But now it seemed like they were falling back into the same patterns they’d had when Colin had first come to live here.
Colin lashing out, pushing Nathaniel away, and Nathaniel having no idea what he was supposed to do about it.
Dorothy would know what to do. Dorothy would know how to help him.
He knew he was right. But that was no answer at all, because Dorothy was gone.
He had pushed her away, too.
Nathaniel waited an hour, hoping to give Colin time to calm down. Then he went to look for him.
The search didn’t take that long. Colin was in his bedroom, curled up in the window seat with a blanket around his shoulders. His head rested against the window, and he was gazing out at the grounds. He didn’t look up when Nathaniel came in.
Nathaniel thought of asking whether he could sit down, but he didn’t want to give Colin the opportunity to say no—he might have refused just out of spite. He crossed the room and perched on the window seat next to his brother.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “About arguing with you.”
Colin looked at him. His eyes were full of tears.
“Oh, Colin,” Nathaniel sighed. “I didn’t mean to make you sad.”
“I liked Dorothy,” Colin said, his voice breaking. “She took care of me.”
“I know she did. I know that.”
“Did I do something wrong? Is that why she doesn’t want to come back?”
“No, Colin, of course not. You didn’t do anything. She likes you a great deal. It’s me she’s angry at.”
“Because I thought maybe she didn’t like that I called her Mother. It was only a mistake,” Colin said quickly. “I’ll never do it again, I promise.”
“Colin.” Nathaniel wanted to reach out and pull the boy into his arms, but the two of them had never done that, and he had no idea how Colin would respond.
He didn’t want to alarm him while he was already so upset, so he restrained himself.
“You didn’t do anything wrong. I think Dorothy sort of liked knowing that she reminded you of your mother.
It was a sweet thing to say to her. She wasn’t upset at all. ”
“Then why doesn’t she come back?” Colin’s tears spilled over. “She must have decided she doesn’t like me.”
“No, Colin. I tell you, it’s me she’s upset with. Not you.”
“What did you do? You must have done something wrong to her. But you could say you’re sorry and make it right,” Colin said. “Whatever it is, tell her you didn’t mean it and you’ll never do it again. And then she’ll want to be friends with us again.”
If only it were that easy.
“I’ll try to do that,” Nathaniel said, mostly because he couldn’t bear the thought that he had made Colin cry. There was no real chance of winning Dorothy back, of course, but perhaps Colin could better adjust to that idea slowly than if Nathaniel tried to force him to accept it all at once.
Colin studied his face.
“I think you’re lying,” he whispered. “I think you’re just saying that. You’re not going to try. You’re not going to tell her that you’re sorry. You’re just going to ignore her and never talk to her again, aren’t you?”
“Colin…”
Colin struggled his way out of his blanket and to his feet. “I want you to get out of my room,” he said, his voice trembling. “You made her go. You took her away.”
There was nothing Nathaniel could say to that. In essence, Colin was completely right. It was his fault Dorothy would no longer be in their lives. He had allowed Colin to grow attached to her, and now she had been lost, just as Colin’s mother had been lost.
My mother. It was still so strange to think of her in that way. She had been Colin’s mother so much more than she had been his. Colin was the one she had raised, and Colin was the one who had suffered the most at losing her. Nathaniel was just another child she’d had a long time ago.
And now the pattern was repeating. They were both losing someone who had mattered to them, and again Colin was carrying more of the burden than he deserved.
But this time, Nathaniel knew, he wasn’t going to escape unscathed.
The loss of Dorothy had cut him deeply, and he was ill-equipped to provide Colin the comfort he so clearly needed.
There was a knock at the bedroom door.
He got up and opened it, relieved to find Helen, the governess. “Your Grace,” she murmured. “There’s a visitor at the door for you.”
Nathaniel’s heart leapt. Could it possibly be? Could she have thought things through and changed her mind? Come back to tell him that she would accept his proposal after all?
“Stay with Colin,” he told Helen, and she nodded and stepped into the room.
Nathaniel moved past her and hurried down the stairs, moving as fast as he could, anxious to get to Dorothy before she changed her mind again and ran away.
Every moment felt urgent, as though his fortune might shift again if he took too long.
He wouldn’t feel secure until he was with her, until he was able to see her for himself.
He wouldn’t know that things were going to be all right until she had said the words.
And then he could bring her upstairs to Colin, and Colin would see that everything was going to be all right after all.
They could get back on track.
They could be a family.
In that moment, Nathaniel understood that it was what he wanted more than anything else in the world.
He reached the bottom of the stairs and took the turn that would lead him to the front door…
His heart sank.
He had been wrong. He’d guessed wrong. It wasn’t Dorothy standing there, waiting to greet him. It was Jonathan, watching him nervously as if he knew something was wrong.
She hadn’t come after all, and he was suddenly sure that she never would.
He had been a fool to hope for it.