My mind flashed back to the time I’d bathed Ned at the boathouse and, seeing what looked like a needle hole in his ear, asked if Louis had been hurting him.
“I didn’t realize Ned had it until I was leaving Guernsey. When I went to say goodbye, I ruffled his hair, and there it was.” Jack lowered his eyes to the worn wooden boards of the wheelhouse. “I felt this awful, sick feeling when I saw it. I should have believed her. Should have trusted her. Can you imagine, when he’s older, what he’d say if he found out what I’d done?” The pain in his voice was palpable.
“But you wouldn’t have to tell him what you’ve told me,” I said. “He doesn’t need to know all that. Morwenna’s death was an accident: Whatever you were saying or thinking when it happened, you didn’t mean for her to fall overboard. You didn’t kill her.”
“I might as well have.”
I reached out and touched his arm. “You can’t let it go on gnawing away at you, Jack. You have to forgive yourself.”
“How can I? Ned wouldn’t forgive me—I’m certain of that.”
“Well, I believe everyone can be forgiven, no matter what they’ve done.” It came out sounding horribly trite.
“How can I be forgiven? If it wasn’t for me, she’d still be alive. I killed her.”
“You’re not a murderer, Jack. It was an accident.” My hand was still on his arm. I wanted to pull him closer, to comfort him, but I could feel the tension in his muscles through the woolen jersey. I was afraid that he would recoil. “You said that when you found me on the beach you wanted to make amends—that was why you helped me.”
He nodded. “What of it?”
“Well, don’t you think that one way you could make amends would be to acknowledge Ned?”
He huffed out a sigh. “I’ve already told you why I can’t do that.”
“Yes,” I said. “The family honor. But don’t you see what it’s doing to you? You’re at war with yourself. You couldn’t tell anyone about Morwenna because of the shame it would have brought, and the same thing has trapped you into denying that Ned is your son: You put the estate and the family name above everything else. Bricks and mortar are more important to you than people.” I was aware that I was being blunt, brutal, even. But for his sake and Ned’s, I had to say it. “Isn’t there more honor in being a father to Ned? Isn’t that more important than a house and social standing?”
He pulled away from me. Anger flashed across his face. “Tell me, Alice—how can someone who gave up all worldly possessions at the age of eighteen have any idea what it’s like to be in my position?”
“I don’t pretend to know that.” I tried to sound unruffled. The contempt in his voice had cut me to the heart. “What I do know is that a house can’t talk to you when you’re feeling lonely. It can’t wrap its arms around you when you’re unhappy. It can’t love you, Jack.”
For a while he said nothing, gripping the wheel of the boat as if he were squeezing the breath out of some living thing. When he did speak, he didn’t look at me. “You’re right, of course.” He sounded tight, grudging. “A place like Penheligan can be as much of a curse as a blessing. It broke my father’s heart. I’m just trying not to let it break mine.”
I wondered what he meant. He’d told me about the financial strain the house had put on his father when the shipping business had failed. Was he talking about money again? Or was it about the hold the house had on him, eclipsing his feelings for Ned?
“It’s a kind of love, though, isn’t it?” he went on. “Not the sort you read about in the Bible—I grant you that. It’s hard to describe, the way it enters your blood, the feeling of indebtedness to all those generations of people who strove to create something beautiful, something lasting.”
“But that kind of love can destroy a person,” I replied. “Is that what your ancestors would have wanted for you?”
His head whipped round. “Who are you to lecture me about love? You gave your Irish boy up without much of a fight, didn’t you?”
“Perhaps I did,” I countered. “Don’t you think I despised myself for not standing up to my father? For running to a convent when I could have run away with Dan? Perhaps we’re very much alike in that respect: we both let down the people we thought we were in love with.”