Chapter Three #2
It was a story Martin had first read in the newspapers.
Later, when the archbishop asked Martin to appoint the vacant Thatcham living to Mr. Bellamy, he had heard it in a hushed explanation of why the grieving parents needed somewhere new to live.
Then, when they had arrived, everyone between London and Thatcham had wanted to inform him of exactly what kind of family he had just appointed to be the spiritual stewards of the village.
And when Caroline had first run off with Eddie Chow—oh, how the story had loomed in Martin’s heart.
He would not burden Mrs. Bellamy by asking her version of the events. Instead, he said, “You have been very good to Thatcham. Although I am not a regular attendee of Sunday services, I have always heard how good you are to the people of the parish.”
“They do not need much compared to Tolpuddle, and that’s because of everything you have done at Northfield Hall.”
It was true that, with so many people living on his estate and those who lived in Thatcham kept in steady business because of Northfield, the poor rolls of the parish were all but empty.
Martin looked back at his letter. “Enough congratulating each other, then. If we want to keep things going well, we’ve got to maintain our work. ”
Mrs. Bellamy—he discovered when he shot a glance her way, to ensure that she didn’t take his words as an admonition—smiled to herself in reply.
They worked together companionably for an hour or so, with only a few exchanges as Mrs. Bellamy asked about this letter or that.
Martin had started a reply to Sophia—granting her ten of the twenty pounds she requested for traveling to Northfield Hall that Christmas, since after all, she was only coming from London and could make the trip on five pounds—when Mrs. Bellamy asked, “Would you like me to put this letter from your solicitor in the stack of correspondence about your family?”
She held the letter carefully in her two sturdy hands. It was folded open, its seal hanging downward towards the desktop, indicating that she had read it.
His solicitor could have been writing about any number of things.
However, their main project at the moment was to decide how Martin should distribute his savings at the time of his death.
Which meant Mrs. Bellamy had most likely just read a very sensitive letter answering his questions about who could legally receive the money.
Instinctively, Martin reached out for it. “I’ll take it now.”
She rose to cross the three feet and place it in his hands. His embarrassment surging, he added:
“I am of course going to do right by my children. The challenge is to predict how much they shall need the money compared to all the investments that Northfield Hall requires.”
“Of course.” Mrs. Bellamy surrendered the letter.
“There is the question of principle, as well, by which I mean ethics and not fiscal principal.” Martin found he could not stop explaining himself.
“As a father, I want to ensure my children and their families are provided with all possible resources to succeed. Yet a founding idea of Northfield is that our profits should be shared amongst everyone who lives and works here. Should that not extend to the distribution of my wealth after I die? And what about the property? Legally, I cannot will away anything that is entailed to the title, but the surrounding acres…should I leave that in a trust to the people of Northfield?”
He only stopped because if he were to continue with the other questions swirling in his head, he might no longer be able to breathe.
Mrs. Bellamy reached across the desk and placed her well-worn palm over his hand. Warm skin. Soft eyes. “No parent ever knows what is best. We only do what we can.”
Martin’s fingers curled around Mrs. Bellamy’s. “I’m sorry that we did not reform for burials of felo de se until this year. It must be very hard not having a grave to visit.”
She blinked, and for the first time, Martin saw grief steal across her face. He was sorry to be the cause of it. He did not want to be one of those people who opened old wounds for their own benefit.
But before he could apologize, Mrs. Bellamy said, “Thank you,” and she remained there, bent across the desk to hold his hand, for a moment longer.
It was as if the moment she had entered his study, Martha had crossed the threshold into a fairy realm, one that looked the same as her known world yet contained some other woman—a woman who could cling to the baron’s hand as the emotions she had buried for so many years rose like a groundwater flood.
A moment like this would ordinarily have frozen Martha into silence; she should excuse herself from the room to recover from the embarrassment of her familiarity with Lord Preston. She should flee before she did something worse, like cry.
The most she could bring herself to do was release his hand—though her fingers immediately felt bereft, in the same way her arms used to long for Lucas the moment she handed her baby to someone else.
“Thank you,” she said again, trying to gather herself.
“I hate to cause you pain all over again by bringing it up.”
Martha heard herself laugh—a short bark for which Kenneth would have scolded her if he were alive to hear it. “It causes me pain whether you remind me of it or not, sir.”
He leaned forward, his elbows propped on the desktop, chin stacked on his steepled fingers. His eyes were dark and warm and kind. “That is the way of grief, isn’t it.”
“Grief, yes.” She should agree and let it be.
It was time to retreat to her desk. Yet Martha found herself, in this fairy realm, remaining there with Lord Preston.
“Shame, too. Dismay. Guilt. I—” But she didn’t know where her sentence was going.
All those words she had been holding in remained trapped, lost somewhere in their exile.
Lord Preston watched her without a reply of his own.
Martha confessed: “I wonder if having a grave to visit would make it easier. I’ve been visiting Kenneth’s every day so that I could see if it helps with the grief.
I pretend Lucas is there under that marker with his father.
But he’s not, and I can’t forget that he is not.
The truth is that I don’t know where he is.
What kind of mother doesn’t know where her child is? ”
Lord Preston nodded, and his silence was what allowed her to keep going:
“I know he is buried at a crossroads near Bath, but I don’t know which.
I know that they drove a stake through his heart before they buried him.
I know all of that is supposed to punish him, but I don’t see how.
God is already punishing him. It only punishes me.
” Here came a—not a sob, not a gasp, but a breath that tore through her like a tornado.
Martha gripped Lord Preston’s desk to recover.
Her eyes were burning and hot, and when she wiped at them, she discovered tears had been gathering on her lashes.
Reaching across the desk, Lord Preston circled her wrist with his fingers as a bulwark.
“Maybe it’s right that I’m punished. Maybe that is the whole design. After all, what kind of mother raises a son who runs off with an earl’s daughter? Where was his common sense? Where was his idea of right and wrong? Aren’t his sins my sins, too?”
Lord Preston’s fingers tightened around the bare skin of her wrist, almost as if he were checking her pulse. His dark eyes broke away from watching her as he said, “What kind of father raises a daughter who spurns her family to marry a glazier?”
Strange—Kenneth had failed Lucas just as much as Martha had, yet this moment with Lord Preston was the first time that her guilt no longer felt like hers alone. She was guilty, but so was the mighty Lord Preston, and that made it more bearable.
His fingers withdrew from her wrist. Still looking down, he said, “No doubt you resent the comparison. Not only is Caroline alive, but she and I are on speaking terms.”
“I don’t resent you.” Martha wanted to take his hand again, but she didn’t have the courage.
Somehow, the fairy dust was wearing off, and soon she would need to return to the desk with the correspondence and continue with life as if Lucas had never lived and erred and died.
In these last moments, she added, “I commiserate with you, and I thank you for that.”
Lord Preston looked up at her again at last, and he smiled the kind of smile only fellow warriors could share.
Perhaps she had once shared that kind of smile with Kenneth, but Martha didn’t remember it. This felt new—special—freeing—intoxicating.
Martha retreated to her desk. She spent the rest of the morning sorting Lord Preston’s mail, and they didn’t have any further conversation. Yet the feeling remained in the air, a secret between just the two of them, and for the first time in years, Martha found herself wishing time would slow.