She sighed heavily. “He was cruel, and it made her small. Scared. She shut me out completely, though she did allow the children to see me from time to time. I appreciated that, at least.”
The healed, circular burn scars on Martha’s body had undoubtedly been inflicted by the burning end of a cigar. If her husband had abused her, Leo wondered if he’d also harmed their children.
“When Dan was killed, I wasn’t sorry,” Esther said, speaking tremulously as if the confession embarrassed her. “And I don’t believe my sister was sorry, either. I think in her heart, Martha hated him. She hated any piece of him, any reminder.”
Looking upon his children every day would have made it impossible for Martha to forget him, Leo imagined. Perhaps her solution had been to rid herself of them, so she could rid herself of him completely.
“What were the children’s ages when they were sent to the orphanage?” Leo asked, feeling sorrow for the confusion and pain they must have suffered.
At the thought of the children, a small grin emphasized the round apples of Esther’s cheeks. “Paula was the eldest, at fourteen. Her brother, Gavin, was eleven. Oh, he was such a scamp! Not in any devious way. At least, not before his mother sent him away.” The grin faltered. “And there was little Edward. Just four months old when Martha shunted him off to that unfeeling place. He was there a month before a fever took him. He was so little. I can’t even remember what he looked like.”
She touched the creased hankie to her nose again, eyes squeezing shut.
The mention of the baby put Leo in mind of the worn letter in Martha’s handbag, dated May 1871.
“When were the children placed in the orphanage?” she asked Esther.
When the woman opened her eyes, they were watery. She’d been fighting tears. “It was in April of 1871.”
So then, the infant boy would have died around the time of the letter.
“How did Martha handle the news of Edward’s death?” she asked next.
“It still hurts to think about it, if I’m honest. I cried more than she did, I can tell you that. I made the trip down to Twickenham to visit Paula and Gavin, and to lay flowers on the baby’s grave. Their mother hadn’t come, they told me. My heart broke for them.”
The picture Esther had painted of her sister so far was not generous. Leo found herself slipping in her sympathy for Martha Seabright. But, as cruel and selfish as she allegedly had been, she had not deserved to be murdered in cold blood.
“Did Paula or Gavin resent being sent to the orphanage?”
Their rejection of the benefit dinner invitations would indicate they did.
“Oh, yes,” Esther answered without hesitation. “As soon as Paula turned sixteen and became too old to remain there, she came directly to me. She wanted nothing to do with her mother.”
“And Gavin?”
Here, she bobbed her head to the side. The sunlight coming in through her sitting room’s window tapered as clouds thickened in the sky. It cast Esther’s face in gray shadows.
“Gavin was torn. Still is, I think, though we’ve fallen out of touch. He made excuses for his mother’s choices, just like Martha did for her husband’s abuse. I think Gavin wanted so much to believe she loved him, but deep inside, he must have known it wasn’t true. He and Paula seemed to fall out over her too. It’s all so sad. Poor boy.”
If he’d been eleven years old when he entered the orphanage, Gavin would now be twenty-four. Much too old to be seen as a boy any longer.
“Did Gavin not come to you then, like Paula did, when he left the orphanage?”
She shook her head tightly, giving the impression of disappointment. “He went straight out into the world, that one.”
“Not back to Martha?”
At Esther’s deep inhalation, Leo thought she might have pressed too hard with questions. The woman answered succinctly, “He tried. It didn’t last.”
“Do you know why it didn’t?”
Again, Esther adjusted her position on the settee cushion, looking distinctly uncomfortable. “Surely that isn’t anything the police need to know.”
“I don’t wish to seem rude, but in a murder inquiry, it is better to share more than less,” Leo urged.
The wrinkles bracketing Esther’s chin deepened as she tucked her chin in a show of defiance. Leo waited it out, and the older woman relented.
“Very well. My sister had started to entertain gentlemen friends, if you understand my meaning.” She avoided looking directly at Leo as she spoke. “After Gavin returned home and found out, he refused to stay under the same roof with her any longer.”
