Slaves of Obsession (4 page)

“I daresay it is my fault.” Casbolt looked at Trace and shrugged very slightly. “It was I who last spoke to you about it. I may have given the wrong date. If I did, I am sorry. It was most careless of me.” He turned to Judith, then to Monk and Hester.

“It is quite all right,” Monk said quickly, and he meant it. The friction between Trace and Breeland was more interesting than a blander party might have been, but of course he could not say so.

“Thank you,” Casbolt said warmly. “Shall you and I remain here while the ladies retire to the withdrawing room and Daniel and Mr. Trace conduct their business?”

“By all means,” Monk accepted.

Casbolt looked at the port bottle nestling in its basket, and the sparkling glasses waiting for it, and grinned broadly.

Judith led Hester and Merrit through to the withdrawing room again. The curtains were still open and the last of the evening light still bathed the tops of the trees in a warm apricot glow. An aspen shimmered as the sunset breeze turned its leaves, glittering one moment, smooth the next.

“I am so sorry for the intrusion of this miserable war in America,” Judith said ruefully. “It seems we can’t escape from it at the moment.”

Merrit stood very straight, her shoulders squared, staring out of the long windows at the roses across the lawn.

“I don’t think it is morally right that we should try to. I’m sorry if you feel that it is bad manners to say so, but I honestly don’t believe Mrs. Monk is someone who would use manners as an excuse to run away from the truth.” She turned her head to stare at Hester. “She went to the Crimea to care for our soldiers who were sick and injured when she could have stayed here at home and been comfortable and said it was none of her business. If you had been alive at the time, wouldn’t you have campaigned with Wilberforce to end the slave trade through Britain and on the high seas?” There was a challenge directed at Hester, but in spite of the ring in her voice, her eyes were bright, as if she knew the answer.

“Please heaven, I hope so!” Hester said vehemently. “That we even entered into it was one of the blackest pages in all our history. To buy and sell human beings is inexcusable.”

Merrit gave her a beautiful smile, then turned to her mother. “I knew it! Why can’t Papa see that? How can he be there in his study actually proposing to sell guns to the Confederacy? The slave states!”

“Because he gave his word to Mr. Trace before Mr. Breeland came here,” Judith replied. “Now please sit down and don’t place Mrs. Monk in the middle of our difficulties. It is quite unfair.” Taking Merrit’s obedience for granted, she turned to Hester. “Sometimes I wish my husband were in a different business. I am not sure if there is anything entirely without contention. Even if you were to sell tin baths or turnips, I daresay there would be someone on your doorstep
declaring your demands were unrighteous or prejudicial to somebody else’s livelihood. But armaments arouse more emotions than most other things, and seem to depend upon so many reverses of fortune that cannot be foreseen.”

“Do they?” Hester was surprised. “I would have thought governments at least could see the probability of war long before it became inevitable.”

“Oh, usually, but there are times when it comes right out of nowhere at all,” Judith replied. “Naturally my husband, and Mr. Casbolt as well, study the affairs of the world very closely. But there are events that take everyone by surprise. The Third Chinese War just last year was a perfect example.”

Hester had no knowledge of it, and it must have been clear in her face.

Judith laughed. “It was all part of the Opium Wars we have with the Chinese every so often, but this one took everybody by surprise. Although how the Second Chinese War began was the most absurd. Apparently there was a schooner called
Arrow
, built and owned by the Chinese, although it had once been registered in British Hong Kong. Anyway, the Chinese authorities boarded the
Arrow
and arrested some of the crew, who were also Chinese. We decided that we had been insulted—”

“What?” Hester said in amazement. “I mean … I beg your pardon?”

“Precisely,” Judith agreed wryly. “We took offense, and used it as a pretext to start a minor war. The French discovered that a French missionary had been executed by the Chinese a few months before that, so they joined in as well. When the war finished various treaties were signed and we felt it safe to resume business with the Chinese as usual.” She grimaced. “Then quite unexpectedly the Third Chinese War broke out.”

“Does it affect armament sales?” Hester asked. “Surely only to the advantage, at least for the British?”

Judith shook her head very slightly. “Depends upon whom you were selling to! In this instance, not if you were selling
to the Chinese, with whom we were going through a period of good relations.”

“Oh … I see.”

“Then perhaps we should be more careful to whom we sell guns?” Merrit said fiercely. “Instead of just to the highest bidder!”

Judith looked for a moment as if she were about to argue, then changed her mind. Hester formed the opinion that her hostess had had some variation of this conversation several times before, and on each of them failed to make any difference. It was eminently none of Hester’s business, and better left alone, yet the impulse in her, which so often Monk told her was arbitrary and opinionated, formed the words on her lips.

“To whom should we sell guns?” she asked with outward candor. “Apart from the Unionists in America, of course.”

Merrit was impervious to sarcasm. She was too idealistic to see any moderation to a cause.

“Where there is no oppression involved,” she said without hesitation. “Where people are fighting for their freedom.”

“Who would you have sold them to in the Indian Mutiny?”

Merrit stared at her.

“The Indians,” Hester answered for her. “But perhaps if you had seen what they had done with them, the massacres of women and children, you might have felt … confused, at the least. I know I am.”

Merrit looked suddenly very young. The gaslight on her cheeks emphasized their soft curve, almost childlike, and the fair hair where it curled on her neck.

Hester felt a surge of tenderness towards her, remembering how ardent she had been at that age, how full of fire to better the world, and sure that she knew how, without the faintest idea of the multitudinous layers of passion and pain intertwined with each other, and the conflicting beliefs, all so reasonable if taken alone. If innocence were not reborn with each generation, what hope was there that wrongs would ever be fought against?

“I am not happy about the morality of it either,” she said contritely. “I would rather have something relatively uncomplicated, like medicine. People’s lives are still in your hands, you can still make mistakes, terrible ones, but you have no doubt as to what you are trying to do, even if you don’t know how to do it.”

Merrit smiled tentatively. She recognized an olive branch and took it. “Aren’t you afraid sometimes?” she asked softly.

“Often. And of all sorts of things.”

Merrit stood still in the fading light. Only the very top of the aspen beyond her still caught the sun. She was fingering a rather heavy watch which had been tucked down her bosom, and now she had taken it out. She caught Hester’s eyes on it and the color deepened in her cheeks.

“Lyman gave it to me … Mr. Breeland,” she explained, avoiding her mother’s gaze. “I know it doesn’t really complement this dress, but I intend to keep it with me always, to the devil with fashion!” She lifted her chin a little, ready to defy any criticism.

Judith opened her mouth, then changed her mind.

“Perhaps you could wear it on your skirt?” Hester suggested. “It looks like a watch for use as much as ornament.”

Merrit’s face lightened. “That’s a good idea. I should have thought of that.”

“I tend to wear a useful watch rather than a pretty one,” Hester said. “One I cannot really see defeats the purpose.”

Merrit walked over to the chair opposite Hester and sat down. “I have the most tremendous admiration for people who dedicate themselves to the care of others,” she said earnestly. “Would it be intrusive or troublesome of me to ask you to tell us a little more about your experiences?”

Actually it was something Hester was very willing to leave behind her when there was nothing she could accomplish and no one to persuade. However, it would have been ungracious to refuse, so she spent the next hour answering Merrit’s eager questions and waiting for Judith to lead the
conversation in another path, but Judith seemed to be just as interested, and her silence was one of deep attention.

When Trace had completed his business with Alberton he took his leave, and Alberton returned to the dining room, glanced at Casbolt, then seeing a slight nod, invited him and Monk to find more comfortable seats, not in the withdrawing room with the ladies but in the library.

“I owe you an apology, Mr. Monk,” Alberton said almost before they had made themselves comfortable. “I have certainly enjoyed your company this evening, and that of your wife, who is a most remarkable woman. But I invited you here because we need your help. Well, principally I do, but Casbolt is involved as well. I am sorry for misleading you in such a way, but the matter is very delicate, and in spite of Lady Callandra’s high opinion of you—which, by the way, was given as a friend, not professionally—I preferred to form my own judgment.”

Monk felt a moment’s resentment, mostly on Hester’s behalf, then realized that he might well have done the same thing himself, were he in Alberton’s position. He hoped it was nothing to do with guns, or a choice between Philo Trace and Lyman Breeland. He found Trace the more agreeable man, but he believed in Breeland’s cause far more. He did not feel as passionately as Hester, but the idea of slavery repelled him.

“I accept your apology,” he said with a slightly sardonic smile. “Now, if you can tell me the matter that troubles you, I will make my judgment as to whether I can help you with it—or wish to.”

“Well taken, Mr. Monk,” Alberton said ruefully. He made light of it, but Monk could see the tension underlying his words. His body was rigid; a tiny muscle ticked in his jaw. His voice was not quite even.

Monk felt a stab of guilt for his levity. The man was neither arrogant nor indifferent. His self-control all evening had been an act of courage.

“Are you facing some kind of threat?” he asked quietly. “Tell me what it is, and if I can help you, I will.”

The flicker of a smile crossed Alberton’s face.

“The problem is very simple to explain, Mr. Monk. As you know, Casbolt and I are partners in the business of shipping, sometimes timber, but mostly machinery and armaments. I imagine after the conversation of our other dinner guest, that much is obvious.” He did not look at Casbolt while he spoke but fixed his gaze unwaveringly on Monk. “What you cannot know is that some ten years ago I was introduced to a young man named Alexander Gilmer. He was charming, very beautiful to look at, and a trifle eccentric in his style of living. He was also ill and had been earning his way as an artists’ model. As I said, he was of striking appearance. His employer had abandoned him, Gilmer said, because he had refused him sexual favors. At that time he was desperate. I paid his debts as a matter of compassion.” He took a deep breath but his eyes did not waver.

Casbolt did not attempt to interrupt. He seemed content that Alberton should tell the story.

“Nevertheless,” Alberton went on, his voice even lower, “the poor man died … in very tragic circumstances.…” He drew in his breath and let it out in a sigh. “He had tried to get more work as a model, but each time with less respectable people. He was … somewhat naive, I think. He expected a standard of morality that did not exist in the circles in which he moved. He was misunderstood. Men thought he was offering sexual favors, and when he refused they became angry and put him out on the street. I suppose rejection very often produces such emotions.” He stopped, his face filled with pity.

This time it was Casbolt who took up the thread, his voice earnest.

“You see, Mr. Monk, poor Gilmer, whom I also helped financially on one occasion, was found dead several months ago in a house known for male prostitution. Whether they merely sheltered him out of compassion, or if he worked
there, is not known. But it made any money passed to him, whether a gift or a payment, fall under suspicion.”

“Yes, I see that.” Monk could visualize the picture very clearly. He was not sure precisely how much he believed, but it was probably irrelevant. “Someone has discovered proof of this gift of yours and wishes you to continue it … only to them?”

A flicker crossed Alberton’s face. “It is not quite as simple as that, but that is the substance of it. It is not money they wish. If it were, I could be tempted, to protect my family, although I realize that once you have paid there is no end to it.”

“It also appears to be an admission that there is something to hide,” Monk added, hearing the edge of contempt in his own voice. Blackmail was a crime he loathed above any other kind of theft. It was not just the extortion of money; it was a form of torture, long-drawn-out and deliberate. He had known it to drive people to their deaths. “I’ll do all I can to help,” he added quickly.

Alberton looked at him. “The payment they want is one I cannot give.”

Casbolt nodded very slightly, but there was anger and pain in his face. He watched Monk intently.

Monk waited.

“They want me to pay them in gun sales,” Alberton explained. “To Baskin and Company, a firm which I know is merely a front for another which sells directly to pirates operating in the Mediterranean.” His hands were clenched into fists till his knuckles shone white. “What you may not know, Mr. Monk, is that my wife is half Italian.” He glanced momentarily at Casbolt. “I think you heard mention of it at dinner. Her brother and his wife and children were murdered while at sea off the coast of Sicily … by pirates. You will understand why it would be impossible for me to sell them guns in those circumstances.”

“Yes … yes, of course I do,” Monk said with feeling. “It is never good to pay blackmail, but this is doubly impossible. If you give me all the information you have, I will do
everything I can to find out who is threatening you, and deal with it. I may be able to find proof that your gift was no more than compassion, then they will have no weapon left. Alternatively, there may be the same weapon to use against them. I assume you would be willing for me to do that?”