A sudden, fearful death (8 page)

"Because of what Mrs. Penrose
will do with the knowledge?" Callandra asked.

"No—not really." He
looked at her gravely, searching her curious, clever face. "Because of the
ruin and the pain it will bring."

"To the offender?"
Callandra asked. "To his family?"

Monk smiled. "No—and
yes."

"Can you speak of it?"
Hester asked him, all friction between them brushed aside as if it did not
exist. "I assume you have to make a decision, and that is what troubles
you?"

"Yes—by tomorrow."

"Can you tell us?"

He shrugged very slightly and sat
back farther in his chair. She had the one he really wanted, but it hardly mattered
now. His irritation was gone.

"Marianne lives with her
married sister, Julia, and her sister's husband, Audley Penrose. Marianne says
she was raped when she was in the summerhouse in the garden, but she did not
know the man."

Neither Hester nor Callandra
interrupted him, nor did their faces betray any disbelief.

"I questioned everyone in the
neighborhood. No one saw any stranger."

Callandra sighed. "Audley
Penrose?"

"Yes."

"Oh dear. Does she love him?
Or think she does?"

"No. She is horrified—and
apparently hurt," he said wearily. "She would rather be put out in
the street as an immoral woman than have Julia know what happened."

Hester bit her lip. "Has she
any conception what that would be like?"

"Probably not," he
replied. "But that hardly matters. Julia won't allow that to happen—I
don't think. But Marianne doesn't want me to tell anyone. She says she will
deny it anyway, and I can understand that Audley will deny it, naturally. He
has to. I have no idea what Julia will believe, or what she will have to say
she believes."

"Poor creature," Hester
said with sudden passion. "What a fearful dilemma. What have you told
her?"

"That I cannot find out who
assaulted Marianne and I wish to be released from the case."

Hester looked across at him, her
face lit with warmth of admiration and respect.

He was caught unaware by how sweet
it was to him. Without warning the bitterness vanished from the decision. His
own pride slipped away.

"And you are content with
that?" Callandra broke the moment.

"Not content," he
replied. "But I can think of nothing better. There is no honorable
alternative."

"And Audley Penrose?" she
pressed.

"I'd like to break his
neck," he said savagely. "But that is a luxury I can't afford."

"I am not thinking of you,
William," Callandra said soberly. She was the only person who called him
by his given name, and while it pleased him with its familiarity, it also
brought her close enough that pretense was impossible.

"What?" he said somewhat
abruptly.

"I was not thinking of your
satisfaction in revenge," she elaborated. "Sweet as that would be. Or
the demands of justice, as you see it. I was thinking of Marianne Gillespie. How
can she continue to live in that house, with what has happened to her, and may
well happen again if he believes he has got away with it?"

"That is her choice,"
Monk returned, but it was not a satisfying answer and he knew it. "She
was extremely insistent on it," he went on, trying to justify himself.
"She begged me to promise that I would not tell Julia, and I gave her my
word."

"And what disturbs you
now?" Callandra asked, her eyes wide.

Hester looked from one to the other
of them, waiting, her concentration intense.

Monk hesitated.

"Is it purely vanity, because
you do not like to appear to be defeated?" Callandra pursued. "Is
that all it is, William, your own reputation?"

"No—no, I'm not sure what it
is," he confessed, his anger temporarily abated.

"Have you considered what her
life will be if he continues his behavior?" Callandra's voice was very
quiet but the urgency in it filled the room. "She will feel terrified
every time she is alone with him in case it happens again. She will be
terrified in case Julia ever discovers them and is devastated with grief."
She leaned farther forward in her chair. "Marianne will feel she has
betrayed her sister, although it is none of her choosing, but will Julia know
that? Will she not always have that gnawing fear that in her heart Marianne was
willing, and that in some subtle way she encouraged him?"

"I don't believe that,"
he said fiercely. "She would rather be put out on the street than have
Julia know it."

Callandra shook her head. "I
am not speaking of now, William. I am speaking of what will happen if she says
nothing and remains in the house. She may not have thought of it yet, but you
must. You are the only one .who knows all the facts and is in a position to
act."

Monk sat silent, the thoughts and
fears crowding his mind.

It was Hester who spoke.

"There is something worse than
that," she said quietly. "What if she became with child?"

Monk and Callandra both turned
slowly toward her and it was only too apparent in their faces that such an idea
had not occurred to them, and now that it had they were appalled.

"Whatever you promised, it is
not enough," Callandra said grimly. "You cannot simply walk away and
leave her to her fate."

"But no one has the right to
override her choice," Hester argued, not out of obstructiveness but
because it had to be said. Her own conflicting emotions were plain in her face.
For once Monk felt no animosity toward her, only the old sense of total friendship,
the bond that unites people who understand each other and care with equal
passion in a single cause.

"If I don't give her an answer
I think Julia may well seek another agent who will," Monk added miserably.
"I didn't tell Marianne that because I didn't see her again after I spoke
to Julia."

"But what will happen if you
tell Julia?" Hester asked anxiously. "Will she believe you? She will
be placed in an impossible situation between her husband and her sister."

"And there is worse,"
Monk went on. "They are both financially dependent upon Audley."

"He can't throw his wife
out." Hester sat upright, her face hot with anger. "And surely she
would not be so— oh, of course. You mean she may choose to leave. Oh
dear." She bit her lip. "And even if his crime could be proved, which
it almost certainly could not, and he were convicted, then there is not money
for anyone and they would both be in the street. What a ridiculous
situation." Her fists clenched in her lap and her voice was husky with
fury and frustration.

Suddenly she rose to her feet.
"If only women could earn a living as men can. If women could be doctors
or architects and lawyers too." She paced to the window and turned.
"Or even clerks and shopkeepers. Anything more than domestic servants,
seamstresses, or whores! But what woman earns enough to live in anything better
than one room in a lodging house if she's lucky, and in a tenement if she's
not? And always hungry and always cold, and never sure next week will not be
even worse."

"You are dreaming," Monk
said, but not critically. He understood her feeling and the facts that,
inspired it. "And even if it happens one day, which is unlikely because it
is against the natural social order, it won't help Julia Penrose or her sister.
Anything I tell her—or don't—will cause terrible harm."

They all remained in silence for
several minutes, each wrestling with the problem in his or her own way, Hester
by the window, Callandra leaning back in her chair, Monk on the edge of his.
Finally it was Callandra who spoke.

"I think you should tell
Julia," she said very quietly, her voice low and unhappy. "It is not
a good solution, but I believe it is better than not telling her. If you do,
then at least the decision what to do is hers, not yours. And as you say, she
may well press the matter until she learns something, whatever you do. And
please God that is the right decision. We can only hope."

Monk looked at Hester.

"I agree," she answered.
"No solution is satisfactory, and you will ruin her peace whatever you
say, but I think perhaps that is ruined anyway. If he continues, and Marianne
is either seriously hurt or with child, it will be worse. And then Julia would
blame herself—and you."

"What about my promise to
Marianne?" he asked.

Her eyes were filled with unhappiness.

"Do you suppose she knows what
dangers there are ahead? She is young, unmarried. She may not even be aware of
what they are. Many girls have no idea of childbirth, or even what brings it
about; they only discover in the marriage bed."

"I don't know." It was
not enough of an answer. "I gave her my word."

'Than you will have to tell her
that you cannot keep it," Callandra replied. "Which will be very
hard. But what is your alternative?"

'To keep it."

"Will that not be even
harder—if not at first, then later?”

He knew that was true. He would not
be able to turn his back on the affair and forget it. Every tragic possibility
would haunt his imagination, and he would have to accept at least part of the
responsibility for all of them.

"Yes," he admitted.
"Yes—I shall have to go back and tell Marianne."

"I'm sorry." Hester
touched his arm briefly, then withdrew.

They did not discuss it further.
There was nothing more to say, and they could not help him. Instead they spoke
of things that had nothing to do with the work of any of them, of the latest
novels to be published and what they had heard said of them, of politics, of
affairs in India and the fearful news of the mutiny, and the war in China. When
they parted late into the summer night and Monk and Hester shared a hansom back
to their respective lodgings, even that was done in companionable conversation.

Naturally they stopped at Hester's
rooms first, the very sparsest of places because so frequently she was living
in the house of her current patient. She was the only resident in her rooms at
the moment because her patient was so nearly recovered she required attention
only every other day, and did not see why she should house and feed a nurse
from whom she now had so little service.

Monk alighted and opened the door
for her, handing her down to the pavement. It came to his lips to say how pleasant
it had been to see her, then he swallowed the words. There was no need of them.
Small compliments, however true, belonged to a more trivial relationship, one
that sailed on the surface of things.

"Good night," he said
simply, walking across the stones with her to the front door.

"Good night, Monk," she
answered with a smile. "I shall think of you tomorrow."

He smiled back, ruefully, knowing
she meant it and feeling a kind of comfort in the thought that he would not be
alone.

Behind him in the street the horse
stamped and shifted position. There was nothing else to say. Hester let herself
in with her key, and Monk returned to the hansom and climbed up as it moved off
along the lamplit street.

* * * * *

He was at Hastings Street at
quarter to ten in the morning. It was mild and raining very slightly. The
flowers in the gardens were beaded with moisture and somewhere a bird was
singing with startling clarity.

Monk would have given a great deal
to have been able to turn and go back again to the Euston Road and not call at
number fourteen. However, he did not hesitate on the step or wait before
pulling the bell. He had already done all the thinking he could. There was no
more debate left, no more arguments to put for either action.

The maid welcomed him in with some
familiarity now, but she was slightly taken aback when he asked to see not Mrs.
Penrose but Miss Gillespie. Presumably Julia had said she was expecting him.

He was alone in the morning room,
pacing in restless anxiety, when Marianne came in. As soon as she saw him her
face paled.

"What is it?" she asked
quickly. "Has something happened?"

"Before I left here
yesterday," he replied, "I spoke to your sister and told her that I
would not be able to learn who assaulted you, and it would be pointless to
continue seeking. She would not accept that. If I do not tell her then she will
employ someone else who will."

"But how could anyone else
know?" she said desperately. "I wouldn't tell them. No one saw, no
one heard."

"They will deduce it from the
evidence, as I did." This was every bit as hard as his worst fears. She
looked so crushed. "Miss Gillespie—I am sorry, but I am going to have to
take back the pledge I gave you and tell Mrs. Penrose the truth."

"You can't!" She was
aghast. "You promised you would not do that!" But even as she spoke
the innocent indignation was dying in her face and being replaced by
understanding—and defeat.

He felt wretched. He had no
alternative, and yet he was betraying her and he could not argue himself out of
it.