The Twisted Root (4 page)

Campbell remained silent, pushing his hands into his pockets and staring at the floor.

"Aiden," Verona said gently. "I know you believe that she will not return and that only more disillusion and unhappiness will follow from seeking her, but neither Harry nor Lucius will accept that. They both feel compelled to do all they can to find out where she is, if she is unhurt, and why she left. Harry almost certainly for Lucius’s sake, of course, but he is nonetheless resolved. I believe we should help them, rather than make them feel isolated and as if we do not understand."

Campbell raised his eyes and looked at her steadily. "Of course." He smiled, but the effort behind it was apparent to Monk. "Of course, my dear. You are perfectly right. It is something which must run its course. How can I assist you, Mr. Monk? Let me take you to the stables and enquire after James Treadwell. He may be at the heart of this."

Monk accepted, thanking Verona and excusing himself. He followed Campbell down the stairs and out of the side door to the mews. The light was bright as he stepped outside. The smells of hay, horse sweat and the sharp sting of manure were strong in the closed heat of the yard. He heard a horse whinnying, and stamping its feet on the stones.

A ginger-haired boy with a brush in one hand looked up at him with curiosity.

"Answer Mr. Monk’s questions, Billy," Campbell instructed. "He’s come to help Major Stourbridge find Treadwell and the missing carriage."

"Yer in’t never goin’ ter see them again, I reckon," Billy replied, pulling his mouth into a grimace of disgust. "Carriage like that’s worth a fair bit."

"You think he sold it and went off?" Monk asked.

Billy regarded him with contempt. " ’Course I do. Wot else? ’E lit outta ’ere like ’e were on fire! Nobody never told ’im ter. ’E never came back. If ’e din’t flog it, w’y in’t ’e ’ere?"

"Perhaps he met with an accident?" Monk suggested.

"That don’t answer w’y ’e went in the first place." Billy stared at him defiantly. "Less ’e’s dead, ’e should ’a told us wot ’appened, shouldn’t ’e?"

"Unless he’s too badly hurt," Monk continued the argument.

Billy’s eyes narrowed. "You a friend of ’is, then?"

"I’ve never met him. I wanted your opinion, which obviously was not very high."

Billy hesitated. "Well—can’t say as I like ’im," he hedged. "On the other ’and, can’t say as I know anythink bad abaht ’im, neither. Just that he’s gorn, like—which is bad enough."

"And Mrs. Gardiner?" Monk asked.

Billy let his breath out in a sigh. "She were a real nice lady, she were. If ’e done anythink to ’er, I ’ope as ’e’s dead—an’ ’orrible dead at that."

"Do you not think she went with him willingly?"

Billy glanced at Campbell, then at Monk, his face registering his incredulity. "Wot’d a lady like ’er be wantin’ with a shifty article like ’im? ’Ceptin’ to drive ’er abaht now an’ then, as wot is ’is job!"

"Did she think he was a shifty article?"

Billy thought for a moment. "Well, p’haps she din’t. A bit too nice for ’er own good, she were. Innocent, like, if yer know wot I mean?"

"Mrs. Gardiner was a trifle too familiar with the servants, Mr. Monk," Campbell clarified. "She may well have been unable to judge his character. I daresay no one told her Treadwell was employed largely because he was a relative to the cook, who is highly regarded." He smiled, biting his lip. "Good cooks are a blessing no household discards lightly, and she has been loyal to the family since before my sister’
_s
time." He looked around the stable towards the empty space where the carriage should have been. "The fact remains, Treadwell is gone, and so is a very valuable coach and pair, and all the harness."

"Has it been reported to the police?" Monk asked.

Campbell pushed his hands into his pockets, swaying a little onto his heels. "Not yet. Frankly, Mr. Monk, I think it unlikely my brother-in-law will do that. He makes a great show, for Lucius’s sake, of believing that Mrs. Gardiner had not met some accident, or crisis, and all will be explained satisfactorily. I am afraid I gravely doubt it. I can think of no such circumstance which would satisfy the facts as we know them." He started to walk away from the stable across the yard and towards the garden, out of earshot of Billy and whoever else might be in the vicinity. Monk followed, and they were on the gravel path surrounding the lawn before Campbell continued.

"I very much fear that the answer may prove to be simply that Mrs. Gardiner, who was very charming and attractive in her manner, but nonetheless not of Lucius background, realized that after the first flame of romance wore off she would never make him happy, or fit into his life. Rather than face explanations which would be distressing, and knowing that both Lucius and Major Stourbridge, as a matter of honor, would try to change her mind, she took the matter out of their hands, and simply fled."

He looked sideways at Monk, a slightly rueful sadness in his face. "It is an action not entirely without honor. In her own way, she has behaved the best. There is no doubt she is in love with Lucius. It was plain for anyone to see that they doted upon each other. They seemed to have an unusual communion of thought and taste, even of humor. But she is older than he, already a widow, and from a very... ordinary ... background. This way it remains a grand romance. The memory of it will never be soured by its fading into the mundane realities. Think very carefully, Mr. Monk, before you precipitate a tragedy."

Monk stood in the late-morning sun in this peaceful garden full of birdsong, where perhaps such a selfless decision had been made. It seemed the most likely answer. A decision like that might be hysterical, perhaps, but then Miriam Gardiner was a woman giving up her most precious dream.

"I have already told Major Stourbridge that if I find Mrs. Gardiner I would not attempt to persuade her to return against her will," Monk answered. "Or report back to him anything beyond what she wished me to. That would not necessarily include her whereabouts."

Campbell did not reply for several minutes. Eventually, he looked up, regarding Monk carefully, as if making some judgment which mattered to him deeply.

"I trust you will behave with discretion and keep in mind that you are dealing with the deepest emotions, and men of a very high sense of honor."

"I will," Monk replied, wishing again Lucius Stourbridge had chosen some other person of whom to ask assistance, or that he had had the sense to follow his judgment, not his sentimentality, in accepting. Marriage seemed already to have robbed him of his wits!

"I imagine they will be serving luncheon," Campbell said, looking towards the house. "I assume you are staying?"

"I still have to speak to the servants," Monk answered grimly, walking across the gravel. "Even if I learn nothing."

2

HESTER SHIFTED from foot to foot impatiently as she stood in the waiting room in the North London Hospital. The sun was hot and the closed air claustrophobic. She thought with longing of the green expanse of Hampstead Heath, only a few hundred yards away. But she was here with a purpose. There was a massive amount to do, and as always, too little time. Too many people were ill, confused by the medical system, if you could call it by so flattering a word, and frightened of authority.

Her desire was to improve the quality of nursing from the manual labor it usually was to a skilled and respected profession. Since Florence Nightingale’s fame had spread after the Crimean War, the public in general regarded her as a heroine. She was second in popularity only to the Queen. But the popular vision of her was a sentimental image of a young woman wandering around a hospital with a lamp in her hand, mopping fevered brows and whispering words of comfort, rather than the reality Hester knew. She had nursed with Florence Nightingale and had experienced the despair, the unnecessary deaths brought on by disease and incompetence rather than the injuries of battle. She also knew Miss Nightingale’s true heroism, the strength of her will to fight for better conditions, for the use of common sense in sanitation and efficiency in administration. Above all, she fought to make nursing an acceptable profession which would attract decent women and treat them with respect. Old-fashioned ideas must be got rid of, up-to-date methods must be used, and skills rewarded.

Now that Hester was no longer solely responsible for her own support, she could devote some of her time to this end. She had made it plain to Monk from the outset that she would never agree to sit at home and sew a fine seam and gossip with other women who had too little to do. He had offered no disagreement, knowing it was a condition of acceptance.

They had had certain differences, and would no doubt have more. She smiled now in the sun as she thought of them. It was not easy for either of them to make all the changes necessary to adapt to married life. Deeply as she loved him, sharing a bedroom—let alone a bed—with another person was a loss of privacy she found not as easy to overcome as she had imagined. She was not especially modest—nursing life had made that impossible—but she still reveled in the independence of having the window open or closed as she wished, of putting the light out when she chose, and of having as many or as few blankets over her as she liked. In the Crimea she had worked until she was exhausted. Then she had lain on her cot hunched up, shaking with cold, muscles too knotted up to sleep, and had to arise in the morning when she was still almost drunken with tiredness.

But to have the warmth, the gentleness, of someone beside her who she knew without question loved her, was greater than all the tiny inconveniences. They were only pinpricks. She knew Monk felt them, too. She had seen flashes of temper in his face, quickly smothered when he realized he was thinking only of himself. He was used to both privacy and independence as much as she was.

But Monk had less to forfeit than Hester. They were living in his rooms in Fitzroy Street. It made excellent sense, of course. She had only sufficient lodgings to house her belongings and to sleep in between the private nursing cases she had taken after being dismissed from hospital service for insubordination. He was developing a good practice as an agent of enquiry for private cases after his own dismissal from the police force—also for insubordination!

For him to have moved would have been unwise. People knew where to find him. The house was well situated, and the landlady had been delighted to allow them an extra room to make into a kitchen, and to give up having to cook and clean for Monk, a duty she had done only from necessity before, realizing he would probably starve if she didn’t. She was very pleased to have both the additional rent and more time to devote to her increasingly demanding husband—and whatever other pursuits she enjoyed beyond Fitzroy Street.

So Hester was, with some difficulty, learning to become domestic and trying to do it with a modicum of grace.

Her real passion was still to reform nursing, as it had been ever since she had come home from the Crimea. Lady Callandra Daviot shared her feelings, which was why Hester was standing in the North London Hospital now waiting for Callandra to come and recount the success or failure of their latest attempt.

She heard the door opening and swung around. Callandra came in, her hair sticking out in tufts as if she had run her fingers through it, her face set tight and hard with anger. There was no need to ask if she had succeeded.

Callandra had dignity, courage and good humor, but not even her dearest friend would have said she was graceful. In spite of the best efforts of her maid, her clothes looked as if she paid no regard to them, merely picking up what first came to her hand when she opened the wardrobe door. Today it was a green skirt and a blue blouse. It was warm enough inside the hospital for her not to wear whatever jacket she had chosen.

"The man is a complete idiot!" she said furiously. "How can anyone see to diagnose what ails a person for any of a hundred diseases and still be blind as a bat to the facts before his face?"

"I don’t know," Hester admitted. "But it happens frequently."

The door was still wide open behind Callandra. She turned on her heel and marched out again, leaving Hester to follow after her.

"How many hours are there in a day?" Callandra demanded over her shoulder.

"Twenty-four," Hester replied as they reached the end of the passage and went through the now-empty operating theater with its table in the center, benches for equipment, and the railed-off gallery on three sides for pupils and other interested parties to observe.

"Exactly," Callandra agreed. "And how much of that time can a surgeon be expected to care for his patient personally? One hour if the patient is important—less if he is not. Who cares for him the rest of the time?" She opened the farther door into the wide passageway that ran the length of the entire ground floor.

"The resident medicine officer—" Hester began.

"Apothecary!" Callandra said dismissively, waving her hand in the air.

Hester closed the door behind them. "They prefer to call them resident medicine officers now," she remarked. "And the nurses. I know your point. If we do not train nurses, and pay them properly, everyone else’s efforts are largely wasted. The most brilliant of surgeons is still dependent upon the care we give his patients after he has treated them."

"I know that." Callandra hesitated, deciding whether to go right, towards the casualty room, or left, past the postmortem room to the eye department and the secretary’s office and the boardroom. "You know that." She decided to go left. "Dr. Beck knows that." She spoke his name quite formally, as if they had not been friends for years
_—
and not cared for each other far more than either dared say. "But Mr. Ordway is very well satisfied with things as they are! If it were up to him we’d still be wearing fig leaves and eating our food raw."

"Figs, presumably," Hester said dryly. "Or apples?"

Callandra shot her a sharp look. "Figs," she retorted with absolute certainty. "He’d never have had the courage to take the apple!"

"Then we would not be wearing the fig leaves, either, heaven preserve us," Hester pointed out, hiding her smile.

"Marriage has made you decidedly immodest!" Callandra snapped, but there was satisfaction in her voice. She had long wished Hester’s happiness, and had once or twice alluded to fears that her friend might become too wasp-tongued to allow herself the chance.

They reached the end of the corridor and Callandra turned right, towards the boardroom. She hesitated in her step so slightly that had Hester not felt the trepidation herself, she might not have noticed it at all.

Callandra knocked on the door.

"Come in!" the voice inside commanded.

Callandra pushed it open and went inside, Hester on her heels.

The man sitting at the large table was of stocky build, his hair receding from a broad brow, his features strong and stubborn. His was not a handsome face, but it had a certain distinction. He was extremely well dressed in a suit of pinstriped cloth which must have been very warm on this midsummer day. His white collar was high and stiff. A gold watch chain was draped across his broad chest.

The expression on his face tightened when he recognized Callandra. It positively flinched when he saw Hester behind her.

"Lady Callandra ..." He half rose from his seat as a gesture of courtesy. She was not a nurse or an employee, however much of a thorn in his side she might be. "What can I do for you?" He nodded at Hester. "Miss Latterly."

"Mrs. Monk," Callandra corrected him with satisfaction.

His face flushed slightly and he gave a perfunctory nod towards Hester in mute apology. His hand brushed the papers in front of him, indicating how busy he was and that only polite-ness prevented him from pointing out the fact that they were interrupting him.

"Mr. Thorpe," Callandra began purposefully, "1 have just spoken again with Mr. Ordway, to no avail. Nothing I can say seems to make him aware of the necessity for improving the conditions—"

"Lady Callandra," he cut across her wearily, his voice hard-edged. "We have already discussed this matter a number of times. As chairman of the governors of this hospital, I have a great many considerations to keep in mind when I make my decisions, and cost has to be high among them. I thought I had adequately explained that to you, but I perceive that my efforts were in vain." He drew breath to continue, but this time Callandra interrupted him.

"I understood you perfectly, Mr. Thorpe. I do not agree. All the money in the world is wasted if it is spent on operating upon a patient who is not adequately cared for afterwards...."

"Lady Callandra ..." He sighed heavily, his patience exceedingly thin. His hand moved noisily over the papers, rustling them together. "As many patients survive in this hospital as in most others, if not rather more. If you were as experienced in medicine as I am, you would realize that it is regrettably usual for a great number of patients to die after surgery. It is something that cannot be avoided. All the skill in the world cannot—"

Hester could endure it no longer.

"We are not talking about skill, Mr. Thorpe," she said firmly. "All that is required to ease at least some of the distress is common sense! Experience has shown that—"

Thorpe closed his eyes in exasperation. "Not Miss Nightingale again, Miss... Mrs. Monk." He jerked his hand sharply, scattering the papers over the desktop. "I have had enough letters from that woman to paper my walls! She has not the faintest ideas of the realities of life in England. She thinks because she did fine work in utterly different circumstances in a different country that she can come home again and reorganize the entire medical establishment according to her own ideas. She has delusions both as to the extent of her knowledge and the degree of her own importance."

"It’s not about personal importance, Mr. Thorpe," Hester replied, staring straight at him. "Or about who gets the praise— at least, it shouldn’t be. It is about whether a patient recovers or dies. That is what we are here for."

"That is what I am here for, madam," he said grimly. "What you are here for, I have no idea. Your friends would no doubt say it is from a devotion to the welfare of your fellow human beings in their suffering. Your detractors might take the view that it is to fill your otherwise empty time and to give yourself a feeling of importance you would not have in the merely domestic setting of running your own household."

Hester was furious. She knew perfectly well that losing her temper would also lose her the argument, and it was just possible that Thorpe knew that also. Personally, she didn’t think he had the wit. Either way, she had no intention of catering to him.

"There are always people willing to detract with a spiteful remark," she answered with as good a smile as she could manage. "It is largely made from ignorance and meanness of spirit. I am sure you have more sense than to pay attention to them. I am here because I have some practical experience in nursing people after severe injury, whether caused by battle or surgery, and as a consequence have learned some methods that work rather better than those currently practiced here at home."

"You may imagine so." Thorpe looked at her icily. His light brown eyes were large but a trifle deep-set. His lashes would have been the envy of many a woman.

Hester raised her brows very high. "Is it not better that the patient lives than that he dies?"

Thorpe half rose from his chair, his face pink. "Do not be flippant with me, madam! I would remind you that you have no medical training whatsoever. You are unlearned and totally ignorant, and as a woman, unsuited to the rigors of medical science. Just because you have been of use abroad to soldiers in the extremity of their injuries while fighting for Queen and country, do not imitate the unfortunate Miss Nightingale in imagining that you have some sort of role to teach the rest of us how we should behave."

Hester was quite well aware of Florence Nightingale’s nature, far more so than Fermin Thorpe, who knew her only through her voluminous correspondence to everyone even remotely concerned with hospital administration. Hester knew Miss Nightingale’s courage, her capacity for work and her spirit which fired the labor and sacrifice of this; and also her inexhaustible nagging and obsession with detail, her high-handed manner and the overwrought emotions which drained her almost to the point of collapse. She would certainly outlast Fermin Thorpe and his like—by sheer attrition, if nothing else.

Experience of the Crimea, of its hardships and its rare victories, above all of its spirit, calmed the retort that came to her tongue.

"I am sure Miss Nightingale believes she is sharing the reward of experiences you have been unable to have for yourself," she said with curdling sweetness, "having remained here in England. She has not realized that her efforts are not welcome."