Part 1 Memories
(Told from William's point of view)
I am the third of four sons. My mother, Lady Katherine Tavington, gave birth to me when she was twenty-two years of age. My father, Sir Alastor Tavington, was thirty at the time of my birth. The fourth son, Peter, was born when I was two years of age. My parents were aristocrats and we lived on the sprawling family estate in Liverpool that had been in the Tavington family for years.
My brothers and I, along with my mother and father, prospered on the Tavington family estate until I was about eight years of age. My father then started visiting the local pubs. At first, he only went to visit with friends and maybe have a mug of brandy. However, his visits to the local pubs became more frequent and he would often return to the estate late in the evening, broke and deliriously drunk.
This disheartened my mother, but she could do nothing to stop my father's drinking and gambling problems. All my mother could do was lock my brothers and I in one of the rooms at the estate to protect us from our drunkard father's violent temper.
On one particular evening, when I was ten years of age, my mother had locked my brothers and I in one of the spare rooms and had gone to the quarters that she shared with my father to try to calm his volatile temper. Usually, this only took her about ten minutes. However, as my brothers and I waited for our mother to come unlock the door of the spare room and let us out, we heard angry yells and terrified screams issue from my parents' quarters and then the sound of breaking glass, followed by an eerie silence. Thankfully, by brothers and I all took it upon ourselves to secretly learn how to pick all the locks in the estate in case something like this ever happened. Being the one who was closest to the door, I picked the lock and we all ran to the entrance of my parents' quarters where my father had locked the door (my mother never locked the door when she went to calm my father). I quickly picked the lock and opened the door. The sight before me was horrifying.
My mother lay, motionless and bleeding, by my parents' four-poster, surrounded by the glass remnants of a brandy mug, while my father sat in a chair, finishing another mug of brandy. His eyes glinted evilly in the light of the flames issuing from the fireplace.
My father got up from the chair and charged at my younger brother, Peter, but before he reached my brother, I stuck my foot out and tripped him. My father got up, grabbed one of the dress sabers hanging on the walls of their quarters, unsheathed it and started towards my brother and I. He forced us into a corner and was about to hack down on us when my two elder brothers, Edward and Thomas, grabbed two other dress sabers hanging on the walls and, keeping them sheathed, hit my father hard, on either side of his head, knocking him unconscious.
As soon as my father hit the floor, we all went over to where my mother lay. Edward, my eldest brother, who was twelve at the time, turned my mother over on her back. Blood from a huge cut on the left side of her head, ran down her neck, collecting in pools on the floor. Her gray-blue eyes stared vacantly, unblinking, at the ceiling. We didn't need to check for a pulse to know that she was dead.
Peter began to cry. Edward stated that we had to leave the estate before Father came around. Peter asked if we could bury Mother. Edward shook his head and replied that we couldn't because Father could regain consciousness at any moment and we had to leave the estate as soon as possible.
Edward, Thomas, Peter and I headed quickly out to the stables and saddled four of the family horses. We left the estate, careful to travel through the streams in the woods so as not to leave tracks, should our father try to follow us. We travel as far as possible from the estate and stayed at an inn. Edward tried to report the murder of my mother to the officials, but it was no use; my father lied, saying that a brandy mug had fallen from one of the shelves in their quarters and hit my mother in the head.
My brothers and I grew hateful toward our father and cut off all contact with him until he died several years later and we were left with nothing because he had gambled the family fortune, along with our inheritance, away.
For years I have tried to forget that horrid evening twenty years ago. I have tried to block it from my mind but just when the memory seems to be dissipating, it returns. It haunts me in my dreams. It haunts me through how my superiors look at me and treat me like filth. I can't even look in the mirror and not be reminded because I look just like my wretched father.