Mr Forster's Fortune by Lizzie Church

I soldiered on for a long, long time but I was working on a treadmill – grinding away from day to day, paying off a small debt here, paying the interest there. Sally generously shared her income with me but she was no more empowered to touch the capital than I was, so I could do very little to improve my lot. I had to find another source from somewhere. So in ‘eighty seven I married your mama,’ here Lord Barnham looked a little sheepish. His son spotted it in a moment. ‘I had no money but I did have the peerage and I was aware that some rich ladies might place some value on that. So I decided to make the best of a bad job and salvage what I could. I haunted the salons of London in the hope of attracting a bride. It did not take too long. Two sisters – both as plain as pikestaffs, both ambitious, both with some money of their own – appeared on the marriage mart. One, I could see, wanted riches above everything else. The other, though, was ambitious for a title. Nothing else mattered to her – whether the peer was young or old, amiable or repulsive. What she wanted was a peerage and she would give him her fortune in return. She had no background – no superiority – and no real education – nothing much to recommend her to me at all, other than her wealth. Her father was in vintnering or some such business. But she had ambition, she wanted a title, and she came with a fortune of twelve thousand pounds – a fortune that threw me a lifeline. And on the morning that I married her I promised that I would never give cause for her to regret it – that I would always act the gentleman towards her, and would manage her finances well. And I have tried to do that, Robert. I have tried to be a good husband to your mother – a true husband - and I have used her money wisely. And she herself has grown as snobbish and judgemental as the best of them. You would not know, now, that her background was in trade. So I think I gave her what it was she wanted. And how ever much longer I am given in this world – and, on some days, my son, I fear it is not so long – I can live with myself happy in the knowledge that I leave an inheritance which is unencumbered by any debts of my making, a mortgage which, though still extant, is somewhat smaller than it used to be, and happy, too, that I have done my best by my long-suffering wife – that I have denied her nothing that I could reasonably provide for her – that I have always remembered to whom I owe our comforts in this life. Your mother wanted to have her season in Bath, as her sister is doing. She deserves to do so in her proper, accustomed style.’
    Ever since he was a small boy Mr Forster had known very little of his somewhat forbidding, somewhat remote father. His lordship had spent no time with his children, even when very young. He had packed them off to school at the earliest opportunity and hardly ever even shaken their hands. Lord Barnham had ever been a somewhat stern, remote figure to him, happy to use the rod when required, slow to praise, unable to show any real warmth, even to his children. But his eldest son had been a sensitive child. He had felt crushed by this lack of interest in him and he had agonised over it for ever. He had blamed himself. He had wondered what ever he had done to cause his father to reject him. He had been desperate to make himself worthy of his affection, desperate to earn a word - a s ign, even - of approval, some token that he cared. But as time had passed, and he had done his best – done well at school, acquired some charm, some wit, some polish - but the much craved attention had signally failed to appear, this desperation had gradually transformed itself into a bitter resentment, an avoidance of his father altogether. He had stopped even looking in his father’s direction and had turned his mind to less personal things – drinking and gaming and womanising – instead. But even here his wretched father had thwarted him. The