Acceptable Loss (37 page)

A sudden, deep compassion filled her face. He did not immediately understand it. Then he realized what his own words had been—“all finished, except for the sentencing,” not “except for the trial.” Some part of him feared that Ballinger was guilty, and she had seen that.

“I have to know, Hester,” he said, his throat dry. “He wants to
testify. I need to know what to prepare for. Can’t you understand that?”

“Oh.” There was a finality in her voice, an intensity of emotion that made him suddenly afraid.

“What is it?” he said. “You know how she went. You would have insisted on finding out. Tell me.”

Her face was pale, her eyes terribly, blazingly direct. He knew that whatever the truth was, it was going to hurt one of them. The only question was which one, and how much.

“Margaret took her to the door,” Hester said quietly. “There she met another woman, who was well spoken and wore ordinary clothes, at least an ordinary shawl, but had excellent-quality and most unusual leather gloves, hand-tooled with a little design above the wrist.”

Rathbone felt as if he had been punched. The shock left him without breath. “It can’t be,” he said after a moment regaining his voice. “You must be wrong. Who said Margaret took her to the door? Someone is lying.”

“It was Margaret herself, Oliver. She doesn’t deny it. She was afraid Rupert Cardew had paid Hattie to lie for him, and she wanted to prevent her from doing that.”

He shook his head, refusing to believe it. “But Hattie was strangled and put in the river!” He was almost shouting. “You can’t imagine that Margaret had any hand in that. It isn’t possible.”

Hester touched him, just gently, a hand on his arm. He could feel the slight warmth of her through the fabric of his jacket. “Of course I don’t think she had any willing or knowing part in it,” she agreed. “She took Hattie to the door and persuaded her to leave. Someone else met her there. I would guess it was Gwen, but I can’t be certain. That second woman took her to a house in Avonhill Street in Fulham, less than a mile from Chiswick.”

“Somewhere she would be safe,” he said quickly. “She must have left it herself, and run into one of Parfitt’s men. Margaret couldn’t know that would happen.”

“Of course not,” Hester agreed, but there was no light in her face, no relief from the sadness. “And the landlady said a man was with her. He called himself Cardew.”

“And you weren’t going to tell me?” he said incredulously. “You just said you have no duty of loyalty to anyone, only to the truth.” That was definitely an accusation. It was hard to believe Hester, of all people, to be such a hypocrite. And she hadn’t had to tell him of her loyalties: she had just proved where they lay by keeping the information about Cardew quiet. He felt more deeply betrayed than he had thought possible. He realized with a jolt of surprise how profoundly he had still cared for Hester, perhaps idealized her. It brought a sting to his eyes and his throat. Too much that he loved was melting under his hand, and slipping away.

“Do you really believe that Margaret and Gwen were working in cooperation with Rupert Cardew to murder the one witness who could have saved him, and thus condemned their father?” she asked.

“No, of course not! They …” He stopped.

“Yes? They what?” She waited.

“Perhaps she wasn’t going to save him?” he replied. “Maybe Cardew paid her to lie, and she wouldn’t go through with it. He realized that, and that’s why he killed her.”

“With Margaret’s help?” Hester’s eyebrows rose in disbelief, but there was no triumph in her face. “And Gwen’s? Can you imagine what Winchester will make of that idea on the stand?”

She was right. It was unbelievable.

“Did you really want to know that, Oliver?” Her voice broke into his nightmare. “If you did, then I apologize for not telling you. I made a wrong judgment, and I’m sorry. I know that you have to act honestly. I thought it would be impossible for you if you knew that.”

He felt dizzy, as though the room were whirling around him. She was right—of course she was right. But he did know now. The terrible thing was that he could believe it. He remembered Margaret’s face as she looked at her father. She obeyed him without thought, without judgment. He was part of the life she had always known, the fabric of her beliefs, the order in everything.

That was natural. Perhaps Henry Rathbone was the cornerstone of Rathbone’s own life. He could not think of any values, any thought or idea that they had not shared with each other over the years. Their trust was so deep, it had never needed expressing. It was as sure as
sunrise; it was the safety that reassured all other doubts, so he never feared an endless fall.

“Oliver?”

He heard her voice, but it was a moment before he could recall himself to the present, the small room in the clinic, the bed with the clean sheet on it, and Hester looking at him.

“What are you going to do?” she asked anxiously.

“I don’t know. I really don’t know. I suppose you are certain of all this?”

“Yes.” Her voice was gentle. “Margaret told me herself, when I faced her with it. She didn’t evade it. She didn’t say it was Gwen, though. That I deduced by going out and asking people in the streets. I found a peddler who saw Hattie with another woman, and described her. I found the hansom they took to Fulham, right to the house. I took the same cab to the same house, and spoke to the woman who owns it. There might be one chance in a hundred that I’m wrong. It was another woman who looked just like Hattie, at the same time on the same day. And another Mr. Cardew rented the place for her. And our Hattie turned up dead later that day, in the river just a mile away.”

“One chance in a hundred?” he said bitterly. “Perhaps in a million.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Did this landlady see Cardew’s face?” It was a desperate last throw. Rathbone knew how he sounded even asking.

“No. He stood well back in the shadows, and he had a heavy coat on, and a hat. He could have been anyone.”

He could think of nothing to say, nothing that eased the increasing pain inside him.

“Thank you … I …”

Hester shook her head. “I know. Winchester won’t call me, and you shouldn’t. I can’t testify to anything firsthand. Do whatever you feel is the right thing.”

“The right thing!” The words escaped with a wild bitterness. “For God’s sake, what is that?”

“Do you believe Ballinger is guilty?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. I suppose I fear it. It will be
a kind of hell if he is.” He meant it: he was not exaggerating the horror he saw in his own imagination.

She looked at him steadily. “Would you have Rupert Cardew hanged to save him, because he is your family and Rupert isn’t? If you would, Oliver, then what is the law worth? What if Lord Cardew felt the same way, and would have anyone else hanged, guilty or innocent, as long as his own son didn’t have to face himself and his deeds? Would you accept that? Is that really what you believe—one law for your family, another for anyone else?”

“What about loyalty, what about love?” he asked.

“What have you left to give, if you have already given away yourself?”

“Hester …”

“I’m sorry. I don’t always like it, but I can’t believe anything different. It doesn’t mean you stop loving. If you could care only for those who are good all the time, we would none of us be loved. I’m sorry.”

He nodded. Then he touched her hand briefly and turned to go.

H
E REACHED HOME AT
lunchtime; Margaret was waiting for him.

“Where have you been?” she asked, her voice sharp-edged. “You didn’t say you were going out.”

“I left before you were up.” He found himself defensive. “I went to see your father. He wants to take the stand. I think he shouldn’t, but I couldn’t persuade him.”

“Why shouldn’t he take the stand?” she demanded. She was wearing pale blue, her hair pulled back a little severely, and she looked angry. “He must defend himself. The jury has to hear him deny all the charges and explain that he is a solicitor. He acts on behalf of all sorts of people. Even men like Parfitt are entitled to legal advice, and to a defense, if they are wrongly accused.”

“They are entitled to it even if they are rightly accused,” he pointed out.

“Don’t quibble!” she snapped. “Why don’t you wish him to testify? You haven’t explained that to the jury—I don’t know why not.”

“Because I don’t want to say it more than once,” he replied tartly. “It sounds like an excuse if I push it too hard, like protesting too much. I am keeping it for my final address to them.”

“Well, Papa should still testify. He’ll look guilty if he doesn’t. You’ve said that often to me. It seems to them like running away. If they hear him, see him, they’ll know what kind of a man he is, and that the whole charge is ridiculous. It’s Monk trying to make a name for himself. He probably knows he’s wrong by now, but he daren’t back out of it or he’ll look a fool.”

Rathbone felt as if a nightmare were tightening its coils around him. “Margaret, did you go to Hattie Benson in the clinic, take her to the street door, and persuade her to leave?”

There were two spots of color in Margaret’s face. She lifted her chin a little higher. “She was going to lie about Rupert Cardew, and Hester would have seen that she went through with it. If you think I could allow my father to be hanged for something he didn’t do, then you have no idea of either love or loyalty.”

“Love doesn’t mean betraying what you believe in, Margaret, and no one who truly loved you would ask it,” he replied, his voice trembling.

She closed her eyes. “You pompous fool!” she said between her teeth. “Love means caring, passionately. It means sacrificing yourself for another person because they are more important to you than your career or your ambition, or the way other people admire you, or your money, or even your own life!” Her voice was shaking. “But you wouldn’t understand that. You like, you want, perhaps at times you can need, but you don’t love! You’re a cold, pious, self-righteous man. You don’t want a wife; you want someone to hold on your arm at parties, and organize your household for you.”

Rathbone felt as if she had struck him. He tried to think clearly, find the reason, the balance, but all that filled his mind was crippling emotion. Hester’s words rang in his ears, but he knew even trying to repeat them to Margaret would be useless. And they would sound like Hester, which would make matters even worse.

He should leave, now before he said something that he could never take back.

But as he stood on the outside step again, he was at a loss to know of anything that could have made it worse.

H
E TOOK A HANSOM
and rode in it all the way to Primrose Hill, not even considering the possibility that his father might be out. Only as the cab set him down on the pavement and he fished in his pocket for the money to pay the driver did he think of it. It was a mild Saturday afternoon. Why should Henry Rathbone be at home when there were a hundred other things to do, friends to visit?

“Wait a moment,” he told the cabby. “He may be out. I’ll be right back to tell you.” He turned and strode up the path, now in a hurry as if every second counted. He banged on the door, and thirty seconds later banged again.

There was no answer. His heart sank with a ridiculous, overwhelming disappointment. He was angry with himself for behaving like a child. He stepped back, and the door opened. Henry Rathbone looked grubby and disheveled, a gardening fork in his hand. He was taller than Oliver, lean and just a trifle stooped. His gray hair was sparse and windblown, his blue eyes mild.

“You look terrible,” he observed, looking Oliver up and down. “You’d better come in. But pay the cabby first.”

Oliver had already forgotten the cab. He strode back, paid the man, and thanked him, then went back to the door and into the house.

“Where’s whatshisname?” he asked. He could never remember his father’s manservant’s name.

“Saturday afternoon,” Henry Rathbone replied. “Poor man has to have some time to himself. He’s got a grandson somewhere. Go and put the kettle on the cooktop while I wash my hands and put my tools away. Then you can tell me what’s happened. I presume it is something to do with your father-in-law’s case? Quarter of London is talking about it.” He rarely exaggerated.

Oliver obeyed. Ten minutes later, they were sitting in the large, old armchairs on either side of the fire in the familiar sitting room with its watercolors on the wall and its shelves upon shelves of books.
The tea was poured, but still too hot to drink, although its steamy fragrance filled the air. There were also several slices of fruitcake on a plate. It was rich and inviting, even if Oliver had thought he might never feel hungry again.

“What is your dilemma?” Henry asked.

“I don’t know that I have one,” Oliver replied. “I can see only one acceptable choice, but I hate it. I suppose …” He stopped, uncertain what it was he wanted to say.

Henry took one of the slices of cake and began to eat it, waiting.

Oliver started to sip his tea, trying not to scald himself.

Several minutes passed in silence, comfortable but still needing to be filled with words to frame the burden.

“You are required to do something repugnant to you,” Henry said at last. “If you are certain Ballinger is innocent, then probably you need to show some evidence that someone else is guilty. Rupert Cardew? Is it Lord Cardew you are so loath to see suffer?”

“I can’t do that,” Oliver replied. “The evidence is flawed, very badly flawed. Winchester would demolish it, and leave Ballinger looking even worse.”

“And you are afraid that Ballinger is guilty? If not of killing Parfitt, then at least of something, presumably of financing this boat—or worse, of using Parfitt for the blackmail?”

There it was: simple and astonishingly painful, the truth, in his father’s mild, exact voice. Oliver had no need to answer—it must have been clear in his face. Nevertheless he did so. They had always been frank with each other. His father had never asked for trust, or said how much he cared—at least not that Oliver could remember—but it would have been totally unnecessary, even absurd, a stating of something as obvious as breathing.