The Fall from Grace Part 3

"Daddy?" Jamie's voice came from the doorway, small and uncertain. At eight years old, he had that particular gift children possess for appearing at exactly the wrong moment, like some sort of emotional bloodhound drawn to the scent of adult distress.

Father's head jerked up, and I watched him try to rearrange his features into something resembling paternal confidence. It was like watching someone put on a mask that didn't quite fit—close enough to pass casual inspection, but wrong in all the small, important ways.

"Come here, son," Father said, his voice only slightly slurred. "We have some exciting news."

Jamie crept into the room, his small frame dwarfed by the heavy furniture and thick carpets. He'd been clingy lately, following Mother and me around like a lost puppy, as if he could sense the foundation of his world shifting beneath his feet. Children, I'd learned, were remarkably good at detecting lies, even when the adults around them were working overtime to maintain the fiction that everything was fine.

"Are we really leaving?" he asked, climbing onto Mother's lap with the unconscious ease of a child who'd never had to question whether comfort would be available when he needed it. She wrapped her arms around him automatically, her chin resting on top of his dark head.

"We're going on an adventure," Father said, and I had to give him credit for the conviction in his voice. "To a grand old house in the countryside. You'll love it, Jamie. Fresh air, wide open spaces, probably all sorts of animals to see."

"What about my friends?"

The question hung in the air like a accusation. Father's mouth opened and closed a few times, the way it did when the gin made his thoughts move slower than his tongue.

"You'll make new friends," I said, stepping into the silence before it could grow too heavy. "And think of all the exploring you'll be able to do. Real forests and hills, not just parks with walking paths."

It wasn't exactly a lie. There would be exploring, certainly—the kind that came with being twenty miles from the nearest neighbor and fifty miles from anything resembling entertainment. But Jamie was young enough to still believe that adventure and isolation were the same thing, at least for a little while.

"Will there be horses?" he asked, and I saw Mother close her eyes briefly. He'd been asking for riding lessons for months, the kind of expensive hobby we could no longer afford but had never been able to explain away.

"Maybe," Father said. "We'll see what's available."

Another non-answer wrapped in false hope. I was starting to recognize the pattern—the way Father deflected every difficult question with vague promises and conditional maybes. It was like watching someone build a house out of playing cards, knowing that the slightest breeze would bring it all down.

After Jamie was dismissed to help Mary with the packing, the three of us sat in silence. The afternoon light slanted through the tall windows, illuminating dust motes that danced like tiny spirits. Everything felt temporary now, borrowed. Even the light seemed to know it was trespassing.

"We need to talk about money," Mother said finally, her voice carefully neutral.

Father's laugh was bitter. "What money, Eleanor? We'll have enough for basic necessities, maybe enough to hire help with the move. After that..." He shrugged, a gesture that managed to convey both resignation and defiance.

"I could take in sewing," Mother said quietly. "Or tutoring. I still remember my French and Latin."

The image of my mother—who'd been presented at court, who'd dined with members of Parliament, who'd never so much as made her own tea—taking in mending like a common seamstress made my chest tight with something that felt like grief and rage mixed together.

"That won't be necessary," Father said, but there was no conviction in it. We all knew it probably would be necessary, along with a dozen other small humiliations we couldn't yet imagine.

"What about your investments?" I asked. "The ones that..." I couldn't finish the sentence. The ones that destroyed us seemed unnecessarily cruel, even if it was true.

Father's face darkened. "There are no investments, Catherine. There's nothing left to invest." He took another sip from his tumbler, the ice clinking against the crystal like small bones. "I trusted the wrong people. Made the wrong bets. And now we're all paying for it."

At least he wasn't pretending it was just bad luck anymore. That was something, I supposed.

"The house in Ravenwood," I said. "What do you actually know about it?"

"Not much," Father admitted. "Edmund never married, never had children. He inherited it from our grandfather and lived there alone for the last twenty years of his life. When he died, it passed to me as the next male heir."

The next male heir. Even in ruin, the old prejudices held. I wondered what would have happened if Father had had a daughter instead of me—if the house would have passed to some distant cousin while we ended up in a workhouse somewhere, proper and poor and forgotten.

"Why didn't he ever sell it?" Mother asked.

Father was quiet for a long moment, staring into his drink like it might contain answers along with the gin. "I don't know," he said finally. "Family sentiment, maybe. Or maybe he just couldn't find a buyer willing to live that far from civilization."

That was when I heard it—voices in the hallway, low and urgent. Mother heard it too; I saw her stiffen slightly, her maternal instincts recognizing the tone even if she couldn't make out the words.

I stood and moved toward the door, pressing my ear to the heavy wood. Mary's voice, usually so calm and measured, carried a note of distress I'd never heard before.

"...don't know how to tell them," she was saying. "The boy's been asking questions all day, and Mrs. Montgomery, she's barely holding on as it is..."

Another voice—one of the creditors' men, probably—responded in tones too low for me to catch. But Mary's reply came through clearly enough.

"Twenty years in this house, watching that family, and now... it's not right, is what it is. A man's debts shouldn't fall on his children like that."

I stepped back from the door, something cold settling in my stomach. Whatever conversation was happening out there, it wasn't about packing schedules or transportation arrangements.

When I turned back to my parents, Father was leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed, and Mother was watching me with the kind of careful attention that meant she'd heard it too.

"Catherine," she said softly. "Come sit down."

But I remained standing, my hand still on the door handle. "What aren't you telling me?"

Father's eyes opened, focusing on me with difficulty. "Nothing that concerns you."

Everything concerns me, I wanted to say. I'm not a child anymore, and I'm not going to pretend that hope and positive thinking will fix this.

Instead, I said, "I overheard Father promise you he'd fix it all somehow. How, exactly, does he plan to do that from a cottage in Wales?"

The silence that followed was answer enough.