He took Hartley about with him to house parties and hunts, to London for the season, to all the events Martin had been excluded from. He paid the oldest brother’s university fees and sent the younger boys to a proper school. Martin supposed that Hartley came to the same conclusion, because once Will left, Hartley had never uttered another friendly word to Martin.Īround the same time, Martin’s father began pouring money into the Sedgwick household. It was more than Will could have hoped for without Sir Humphrey’s intervention, but at the time it had been blindingly obvious to Martin that this was an effort to separate Will from Martin. Soon after that, Martin’s father arranged for Will to get a place in the royal navy as an officer’s servant, which would put him on a path to becoming an officer. Martin assumed this was because Hartley, too, thought Martin was debauching Will, and Martin was too insulted to bother with olive branches. Soon after this, Hartley started avoiding Martin. It had all been innocent, but Martin’s father had the sort of mind that saw prurience everywhere, probably because Sir Humphrey was rather devoted to prurience himself, but Martin hadn’t known that at the time. First, Martin’s father had discovered Will in Martin’s bed after one of those nights he had sneaked in. That had all gone to hell in the span of a summer.
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