A Suitable Vengeance

“For giving in to the wanting while Father was alive. I couldn’t deal with that. I couldn’t stand what it meant.”


She looked beyond him, towards the Tudor gatehouse. “I gave in,” she said. “Yes. I did that. I wish I’d had the nobility or the courage or whatever it would have taken to send Roddy away when I first realised how much I did love him. But I didn’t possess whatever strength it would have taken to do that, Tommy. Other women probably do. But I was weak. I was needy. I asked myself how evil it could be if Roddy and I truly loved each other. How great a wrong were we committing if we turned a blind eye to social condemnation and acted on that love? I wanted him. To have him and still live with myself, I made neat compartments out of my life—children in one, your father in another, Roddy in a third—and I was a different person for each part. What I didn’t expect was that you would burst out of the section I’d reserved for you and see the person who wanted Roddy. I didn’t think you’d ever see me for what I was.”

“What were you really, Mother? Nothing more or less than a human being. I couldn’t accept that.”

“It’s all right. I understand.”

“I had to make you suffer. I knew Roderick wanted to marry you. I swore it would never happen. Your primary loyalty was to the family and to Howenstow. I knew he wouldn’t marry you unless you’d promise to leave the estate. So I kept you here like a prisoner, all these years.”

“You don’t have that power. I chose to stay.”

He shook his head. “You would have left Howenstow the moment I married.” He saw in her face that this was the truth. She dropped her eyes. “I knew that, Mother. I used that knowledge as a weapon. If I married, you were free. So I didn’t marry.”

“You never met the right woman.”

“Why on earth won’t you let me take the blame I deserve?”

She looked up at that. “I don’t want you in pain, darling. I didn’t want it then. I don’t want it now.”

Nothing could have stirred him to greater remorse. No rebuke, no recrimination. He felt like a swine.

“You seem to think the burden is all on your shoulders,” his mother said. “Don’t you know a hundred thousand times I’ve wished that you hadn’t found us together, that I hadn’t struck out at you, that I had done something—said something, anything—to help you with your grief. Because it was grief you were feeling, Tommy. Your father was dying right here in the house, and I’d just destroyed your mother as well. But I was too proud to reach out to you. What a supercilious little monster, I thought. How dare he try to condemn me for something he can’t even understand. Let him simmer in his anger. Let him weep. Let him rage. What a prig he is. He’ll come round in the end. But you never did.” She touched his cheek lightly with the back of her hand, a tentative pressure that he barely felt. “There was no greater punishment than the distance between us. Marriage to Roddy would have done nothing to change that.”

“It would have given you something.”

“Yes. It still can.”

A lightening of her voice—an underlying gentleness—told him what she had not yet said. “He’s asked you again? Good. I’m glad of it. It’s more forgiveness than I deserve.”

She took his arm. “That time is finished, Tommy.” Which was so much her way at the heart of the matter, offering a forgiveness that swept away the anger of half a lifetime.

“That simply?” he asked.

“Darling Tommy, that simply.”