A Closed Heart by Oster, Camille (acx book reading txt) 📕

do so. He uses his ill-fated marriage to do so. Honestly, I think he chose his wife because he could never love her.”

That was a very uncomfortable thing to hear. “You think he expected his marriage to fail?”

“Oh, I think he expected it would continue, but I think he hoped for a marriage kept at arm’s length. Cressida seemed the perfect candidate for such a marriage. Vain and superficial, but when it came to it, she sought something more. If that be more prestige or if she truly cares for this man she’s run off with, I don’t know. Julius is very bitter because she didn’t comply with the role he’d designed for her.”

“You make him sound like a monster.”

Octavia stopped short and turned to her. “No, that’s not it at all. If I’m giving that impression, then I’m sorry.” She started walking again. “Julius seeks to control things, you see. There’s nothing he hates more than being out of control—either in himself or the things around him. Atticus is, unfortunately, a recipient of it. He’s raised with structure, which isn’t always a bad thing for a child.”

Jane herself had been raised with structure in place of family life, so she knew how that felt. That Julius loved him was apparent from her perspective, but she wasn’t as sure Atticus knew it from his.

“Julius blames himself for our mother’s death. He wasn’t responsible by any means. He was a mere child at the time, but some loud noise he made scared the horses and they bolted. The carriage turned.”

None of this had been mentioned to her, but why should it?

“I’m afraid at my worst, in my childish mind, I blamed him too,” Octavia admitted. It was a grave admission. No everyone acknowledged the cruelties they’d inflicted as children. A child’s perspective wasn’t always with sympathy. It was clearly a source of guilt for her—which may be the root of the, at times, tactless prodding she made at his shortcomings. “Shortly after, Father became ill, quite seriously, and Julius must have felt even more out of control. As a consequence, Julius doesn’t invite a great deal into his life—certainly not anything involving risk to either the estate or to his own emotions. Perhaps Cressida believed he would change. I’m not sure what she believed her married life would be, but it seems she was disappointed. And Julius is bitter.”

“Yes,” was all Jane could say. It was clear that he was angry with the failure of his marriage.

“He simply needs to let it go. He needs to marry again—someone who actually cares about him. But he’s so stubborn, he refuses to change his ways. It’s a family trait, I’m afraid. Stuck in a rut like a stubborn mule. That really should be the family motto.”

“It seemed to work out for both you and your other brother.”

“Yes, well, it takes someone extraordinary to take on a Hennington. A sad fact. But instead of moving on, he sits here,” she said, pointing back at the house, “refusing to divorce the woman and find a new bride. Again, it’s Julius controlling a situation that has utterly failed.”

“Do you think he hopes she would return?”

“No, he wouldn’t let her if she tried. Which I really don’t think would happen. I could be wrong, but I don’t think there’s anything appealing for Cressida at Denham.”

“Not even Atticus?”

“In all honesty, I think a large proportion of why she left may have been because she didn’t bond with him the way a mother should. It’s very sad. I couldn’t imagine how that would be for her,” Octavia said with a shudder. “So it well may be that it is Atticus and her guilt over him that drove her away more than Julius.”

That was just awful. While Jane had little understanding of motherly love, she knew instinctively it was a bond deeper than no other, and for it to simply be absent had to be heartbreaking. “Poor Atticus.”

“If nothing else, Julius needs to find a mother for that child, but in all honesty, I would fear the kind of woman Julius would latch onto. How do we know it won’t make the situation worse?”

Heading back to the house, Jane was almost sorry for the whole conversation. This was perhaps more understanding than she wanted about the subject of her painting. From being simply a cold man when she'd first met him that she would be happy not to think twice about, he was becoming more complex, even tragic.

It had to be said, she understood Octavia’s prodding more now, but also realized that her attempts were entirely unsuccessful. Still, he couldn’t mean to sit here in this house stubbornly being resentful for the rest of his life? Married or not, people needed to move on, and Octavia was right—he should divorce his wife.

Chapter 18

THERE WAS AN AWKWARDNESS with their next sitting that Julius couldn’t explain. Had someone said something to her? It would be Octavia, because Eliza didn’t say things to people—at least not wittingly.

“They are leaving in the morning, I believe,” he said.

“That’s my understanding,” she replied, working constantly on the painting. At times mixing paints together for a different hue.

“What part of me are you painting?”

“Your face.”

“Oh,” he said and tried to be still, aware every time she looked at him. The spoken reference to doing a nude returned to him and he looked away before he actually blushed. Truthfully, he couldn’t even conceive of it. “I understand art follows very different directions in other countries.”

“There’s an element of fashion in art as there is in most things. There are leaders and those who follow, and people who think they’re leaders, but they’re not.”

“And what are you?”

“I don’t have the audacity to be a leader,” she said with a smile.

“So you are a follower.”

While that statement would