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‘Not from the start. Only since Mother died. You were grieving.’
‘It still doesn’t excuse anything. I missed her so much, but her death wasn’t Father’s fault. I knew that deep down, but I still blamed him. It was unfair of me.’
‘Maybe he deserved to be blamed. Not for that, but for the way he treated us afterwards. He shut himself away in his room and barely spoke to us, not for days or weeks, but for years. He was grieving, too, in his own way, but he never helped us come to terms with her loss. If you were a bad son, then he was a bad father as well.’
‘I still should have reached out to him.’
‘You did. Every time you argued with him, you were reaching out. So was he every time he argued back. Only the pair of you were too stubborn to admit what you were doing. I should have banged your heads together a long time ago.’
‘I thought you said you didn’t come here to insult me?’
‘I’d rather insult you than watch you wallow in self-pity.’
‘Then what about what I did to you? I failed you, too, Arthur. I should have come back when you asked me to.’
‘How could you? You were halfway across the world and a captain in the army. I wanted you to come home, I admit that, but it wasn’t your job to save me. I shouldn’t have asked. I should have stood up for myself instead of running away, but I knew Father would never budge.’
‘I still should have tried to do something. Then you wouldn’t have run away and he wouldn’t have collapsed.’
‘Or maybe he would have anyway. But what happened to him is on my conscience, not yours. It was because of the shock that I gave him. I won’t let you take the blame for it.’
‘I never even tried to be a good son.’
‘Well, I did and look where it got me.’
‘Did he ever speak of me after I went to Canada?’ Lance looked up hopefully.
‘Just once.’ Arthur heaved a sigh. ‘After you left, he shut himself away even more. So did I, mainly to avoid his ranting, but I found him one evening, in that very chair as it happens. He was holding two miniature portraits, the ones Mother commissioned of us when we were boys. He wasn’t angry, he was just sorry—for all of it—and we talked. He’d been drinking, of course, but we really talked, about Mother, and you and me, and the future. It was incredible. For those few hours I thought that everything was going to be all right.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘The next morning he’d forgotten about it. Either that or he pretended to. When I mentioned it at breakfast he looked at me as if I’d gone mad. So I went sailing.’
‘I’m sorry, Arthur.’
‘So am I. You know, despite everything, I think he really did love us and Mother as much as he was able.’
‘You think that he loved us?’ Lance felt a tightness in his throat.
‘Yes. He could just never show it. He never disinherited you, did he? But he could never back down either. And once he got an idea in his head...’
‘Are you making a point?’
‘I’m trying to. And I’m not going to marry the woman you love.’
‘Why not?’ Lance bristled indignantly. ‘She’s worth a thousand of Lydia Webster.’
‘I know that.’ Arthur’s voice sounded pained. ‘I knew that before I ran away.’
‘You did? How?’
‘It doesn’t matter. Suffice to say I found the tru
th out the hard way, but it’s all right. I barely think of her now.’
‘I’m still sorry I told you the way I did. I should have been subtler.’
‘That was never your style, Little Brother.’
