A Breach of Promise (35 page)

If he did, would it be because they were untrue or because he was an emotional coward?

She would not know the answer to that, but he did. What he had revealed was not untrue.

“If you offer Miss Latterly an apology, I am sure she will accept it,” he said more stiffly than he intended.

Hester took a deep breath.

“Oh …” Perdita sighed. “Oh … yes. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m behaving very badly.” Her eyes filled with tears.

Hester moved forward. “Not nearly as badly as you think. And you are at least partly right. We do love people for their vulnerabilities as well as their strengths. We must have both, even to understand each other, never mind anything more. Just keep trying. Remember how important it is.” Her voice dropped. “Killian Melville is dead. It was probably suicide. Last night.”

Perdita stared at her in horror, then her eyes flew to Monk’s.

“Oh … I’m so sorry! Because of the case? Because of what he was, and because it is illegal?”

“More than that,” he answered her. “Actually, Melville wasn’t a man at all; her name was Keelin, and she was a woman. She dressed as a man and behaved as one in all respects, except towards Isaac Wolff, because it was the only way she would be allowed to practice her profession and use the talents God gave her.” He used the word
God
without thinking about it until he had said it. Then it was too late to take it back, and perhaps it was what he meant.

Perdita did not move. Her face was filled, and changed with
growing realization of what he had said, and something of what it meant. Then she shook her head, at first minutely, then a little more, then more again. Then she turned around and went to the door.

“I’m going back to Gabriel. I’ll tell him. He’ll be terribly sorry. It really is so—so final. It’s too late to get anything back now, to … say anything, mend anything.” And she went out quickly, hand fumbling on the knob to turn it.

Hester finally turned to look at Monk. Her eyes searched his.

He tried to think of something to say which would not be evasive, or banal, nor yet commit him to anything he would regret. His mind filled with Keelin Melville, and Zillah Lambert, and the tragic, destructive farce of beauty and the urge to be suitably married, or if that failed, to be married at all costs, anything but remain single.

“Now you are free to look for Martha’s brother’s children,” Hester said quietly. “But don’t run up a debt she cannot pay. Just do what you are able to.”

“I wasn’t going to charge her!” he said a little sharply. Why had she thought he would? Did she not know him better than that?

“And be careful what you tell her,” she added anxiously. “It is almost certain to be very bad.”

“Are you paying me?” he asked sarcastically.

“No …”

“Then stop giving me orders!” he retorted. He jammed his hands into his pockets. This was going to get worse if he remained. He was not saying what he wanted to, what he meant. He was raw inside with the knowledge of failure, of life and opportunity and brilliance and love wasted forever. Perhaps Hester was too, and it frightened her. “I’ll tell you what I find out, if there is anything,” he said aloud. “In a day or two.”

“Thank you.”

He went to the door and turned. He half smiled at her, then went out.

9

M
ONK SET ABOUT
the task of searching for the two children with a feeling of self-disgust for having been stupid enough to accept such a ludicrous case. His chances of learning anything provable were remote, and even if he did it would be something poor Martha Jackson would be infinitely better not knowing. But there was no escape now. It was his own fault for listening to his emotions rather than his intelligence. His fault—and Hester’s.

There was only one place to begin: the last news Martha herself knew of them, which was the house where they were born and had lived until their father died. It was in Coopers Arms Lane, off Putney High Street, south of the river. It was quite a long journey, and rather than waste time in traveling back and forth he had packed a light bag and taken with him sufficient funds to stay overnight at an inn should there prove to be anything worth pursuing. He did not wish to spend any more time than necessary on this case, and to be honest, he wished it over with as soon as possible, consistent with keeping his word.

It was a very pleasant day, warm and bright, and if undertaken for any other reason, he would have enjoyed the journey. He arrived in Putney a little before half past ten and found Coopers Arms Lane without having to ask anyone for directions. The tavern after which it had taken its name looked a promising place for luncheon—and for picking up any relevant gossip.

First he would try the house itself, simply to exclude it from his investigations. After twenty-one years no one would remember anything. Probably they would not have after twenty-one weeks.

He found the right house, a modest residence of the sort usually occupied by two or three families behind its shabby, well-cared-for walls. The step was scrubbed and whitened, the pathway swept. The curtains at the front windows were clean, and even from the outside he could see where they had been carefully mended. It all spoke of ordinary, decent lives lived on the razor’s edge between poverty and respectability, always aware that the future could change, illness strike with its unpayable bills, or employment vanish.

Had it been the same in Samuel Jackson’s day? All the houses up and down the street looked like this one. He felt a wound of sadness as he thought how tragedy had struck, without warning and without mercy. He found he was cold, even in the sunlight, as he put out his hand to lift the knocker.

The woman who answered was not pretty in any conventional sense, but clear eyes and a gentle nature made her appealing. She spoke with a soft Irish accent.

“Yes sir? Can I help you?”

“Good morning, ma’am,” he answered with more courtesy than he would have used in his days as a policeman. He had no power to demand anymore. “I am making enquiries on behalf of a friend whose brother used to live in this house twenty-one years ago. I realize it is unlikely anyone will know what became of him now. It is really his children I am concerned with. She lost touch….” He saw the look of concern and disbelief in the woman’s face. Twenty years was too long to account for renewed interest now without an explanation. He made himself smile again. “Her own circumstances were difficult. She had not the financial means to employ anyone to seek after them, nor the time or knowledge to do it herself.”

“And she has now?” the woman said, skepticism still evident in her voice.

“No,” Monk admitted. “I am doing it as a favor. She is in
service in a house where a friend of mine is nursing an injured soldier.”

“Oh.” The answer seemed to satisfy. “Twenty-one years ago, did you say?”

“Yes. Were you in this house then?” The moment he had said it he realized it was a foolish question. She could not be much more than twenty-five herself.

She smiled and shook her head. “No sir, that I wasn’t. Sure I was still at home in Ireland then, but my pa was. He worked here, and he lodged over the road with Mrs. O’Hare. He’d maybe know who was here then. Missed us all, he did, and were terrible fond o’ the little ones. If you’d like to come away in, I’ll ask him for you.”

“Thank you Mrs….”

“Mrs. Heggerty, Maureen Heggerty. Come away in, then, sir.” And she backed into the passageway, pulling the door wide for him to follow. “Pa!” she called, lifting her voice. “Pa! There’s a gentleman here as would like to see you.”

“William Monk,” he introduced himself. She turned her back to him and was awaiting her father’s answer to her summons, so it seemed inopportune to offer her a card.

“Welcome, Mr. Monk. Pa! Are you fallen asleep again now? It’s only half past ten in the morning.”

A man of about sixty came lumbering from the back of the house, pushing a large hand through thick silver-white hair. He was dressed in shapeless trousers and a collarless shirt with its sleeves rolled up. He denied it indignantly, but obviously to Monk, he had indeed been asleep. He looked like a bear woken from winter hibernation. He blinked past his daughter at Monk standing in the passage, silhouetted against the light from the still-open front door and the sunlit street beyond.

“Sure and what is it I can be doin’ for yer, sir?” he said pleasantly enough. He narrowed his eyes to focus on Monk’s face and try to read something beyond his beautifully cut jacket and shining boots.

“Good morning, sir,” Monk said respectfully. “Mrs. Heggerty
tells me you lived in this street twenty-one years ago—in the house opposite this one?”

“Two doors along,” he corrected. “On t’other side.” His brow creased. “Why would that be interestin’ to you?”

“I believe a Mr. Samuel Jackson lived here then,” Monk explained. Mrs. Heggerty stood between them, the light on her fair hair, her hands tucked under her apron. “He had two children,” Monk went on. “I am making enquiries on behalf of Mr. Jackson’s sister, who is at last in a position to attempt to trace those children. Since she is their only living relative, as far as she knows, she has a care that if there is any chance whatever of finding them, she may be able to offer them some … some affection, if that is possible.” He knew it sounded foolish even as he said it, and wished he had thought of something better.

“For sure, poor little things,” the older man said with a shake of his head. “A bit late now, mind you.” The criticism was only mild. He was a man who had seen much tragedy of a quiet domestic kind, and it was written in his weathered face and his bright, narrowed eyes as he regarded Monk.

“You knew them?” Monk said quickly.

“I saw them,” the man corrected. “Knew them’d not be the right word. They were only tiny things.”

“Would you not like a cup o’ tea, Mr. Monk?” Mrs. Heggerty interrupted. “And you, Pa?”

“For sure I would.” Her father nodded. “Come away to the kitchen.” He beckoned to Monk. “We’ll not be standing here for the neighbors to stare at. Close the door, girl!” He held out his hand. “Me name’s Michael Connor.”

“How do you do, sir,” Monk responded, allowing Mrs. Heggerty to move behind him and close the door as instructed.

The kitchen was a small, cluttered room with a stone sink under the window, two pails of water beside it, presumably drawn from the nearest well, perhaps a dozen doors along the street, or possibly from a standpipe. A large stove was freshly blacked, and on it were five pots, two of them big enough to hold laundry, more of which hung from the rail winched up to the ceiling on a rope fastened around a cleat at the farther wall.
A dresser carried enough crockery to serve a dozen people at a sitting, and in the bins below were no doubt flour, dried beans and lentils, barley, oatmeal and other household necessities. Strings of onions and shallots hung from the ceiling on the other side of the room. Two smoothing irons rested on trivets near the stove, and large earthenware pots were labeled for potash, lye, bran and vinegar.

Mrs. Heggerty pointed to one of the upright wooden chairs near the table and then moved to the stove to replace the kettle on the hob and fetch the tea caddy.

“What happened to the children, Mr. Connor?” Monk asked.

“After poor Sam died, you mean?” Connor resumed his seat in the largest and most comfortable chair. “That was all very sudden, poor devil. Right as rain one minute, dead the next. At least that’s what it looked like, although you can never tell. A man doesn’t talk about every pain he gets. Could’ve been suffering for years, I suppose.” He looked thoughtfully into the middle distance, and on the stove the kettle began to sing.

Mrs. Heggerty scalded the teapot, then put the tea in it—sparingly, they had not means to waste—and added water to the brim, leaving it to steep.

“Yes, after he died. What happened?” Monk prompted.

“Well, Mrs. Jackson was left all on her own,” Connor answered. “Seems she had no one else, poor little thing. Pretty creature, she was. Charming as the sunshine. Never believed those poor misshapen little things were hers. But o’course they were, sure enough. Looked like her, in her own way.” He shook his head, his face sunk in sorrow and amazement. Absentmindedly he made the sign of the cross, and in a continuation of the movement accepted a cup of tea from his daughter.