A Sunless Sea (4 page)

He concentrated on the witness, making himself recall the details of his testimony and one by one attack each point that was vulnerable, forcing the man to contradict himself so the jury would think him devious and unreliable.

He succeeded. This was the last witness of the day and the court was adjourned. Rathbone rode home in a hansom cab and arrived comparatively early. It was one of those calm, still evenings of deepening winter when the storms are all yet to come. It was not cold enough for frost. As he stepped out of the cab and paid the driver, there was no bite in the air. The last of the neighbor’s chrysanthemums were still heavy with bloom, and their earthy smell was sweet as he passed them.

A year ago he would have been happy to be home with this extra time to spend. But that was before the whole business of the barges on the river with their obscene pleasures, their abuse of children, and their final descent into murder.

He and Margaret had been happy before all that—in fact increasingly so with each passing week. There had been tenderness, an understanding between them that filled all kinds of longings he had hardly acknowledged he felt earlier in his life.

Now, as he went in through the front door and the butler took his hat and coat, he felt the heavy silence in the house.

“Good evening, Sir Oliver.” The man was polite as always.

“Good evening, Ardmore,” Rathbone replied automatically. The butler, and the cook and housekeeper, Mrs. Wilton, might be the only people whose voices he would hear until he left his house again tomorrow morning. The soundlessness would grow thick and oppressive, almost like another presence in the home.

It was absurd. He was becoming maudlin. Silence had never bothered him when he was single, which had been a long enough time. In fact, back then he had found it rather pleasant after the constant noise of his chambers, or the courtroom. An occasional dinner with his friends, especially Monk and Hester, had been all the companionship he wished for—apart, of course, from visiting his father out at Primrose Hill. But just at the moment Henry Rathbone was traveling in Europe—Germany, to be precise—and he would be there until well into the new year.

Oliver would have liked to see him this evening. His father was still his dearest friend, as he had always been. But one did not visit friends with one’s own emptiness; right now, there was no interesting problem to challenge Henry with, not even any specific loss or difficulty for which to seek his comfort. Just a sense of having failed. And yet, Oliver did not know what he would have or could have done differently.

He sat in the beautiful dining room that Margaret had designed. As he ate his dinner he went over it all yet again in his mind.

If he had fought harder to prove Ballinger’s innocence, even if he had been able to think of some trick, honest or dishonest, surely it would have made no difference to the eventual verdict? All it would’ve done was tarnish his sense of honor.

But Margaret had never seen it that way. She believed that Rathbone had put his ambition before loyalty to his family. Ballinger was Margaret’s father, and regardless of the evidence, she would not believe his guilt.

Was it better or worse that he had been murdered in prison before he could be hanged?

She had blamed Rathbone for that, too, believing that some sort of appeal could have been made, and Ballinger would have lived.

That was not true, though. There had been no grounds for appeal, and Rathbone, at least, knew that Ballinger had been guilty. In the end, privately between the two of them, Ballinger had admitted it. Rathbone could remember the arrogance in Ballinger’s face as he had told the full story. In his own mind, Ballinger felt his actions were justified.

Rathbone ate mechanically, pushing the roast beef and vegetables around the porcelain plate and tasting little. It was an insult to Mrs. Wilton, but she would never know. He would thank her exactly as if he had thoroughly enjoyed it. The staff were all trying so hard to please him. It was touching and a little embarrassing. They saw him more clearly than he would have wished. It was said that no man was a hero to his valet; that acute perception seemed to extend to the butler and the housekeeper as well. It might even extend to the maids and the footman for all he knew.

Now that Margaret was gone, he had too large a staff, but he could not bring himself to let any of them go—not yet, anyway. Was that for
their benefit? Or was it a refusal on his part to accept the situation as final?

His mind returned to Ballinger, and that last interview they had had together. Had Ballinger been justified, a little, in the very beginning? Clearly he believed so. The descent had come after that.

Or had the first step been wrong, and the rest always bound to follow?

Rathbone finished dessert: a delicate baked custard with a crisp, sweet crust. Mrs. Wilton was trying very hard. He must remember to compliment her for it.

He set his napkin beside his plate and rose to his feet. Without doing it consciously, he had made up his mind to go to see Margaret one more time. Perhaps it was the unfinished feeling that carved such a hollow inside him and made it impossible to close the acrimoniousness and begin to heal, whatever that might mean. He had not yet done everything he could to resolve the bitterness between them.

She was mistaken. He had not set his ambition before family. Ambition had not been on his mind at all. He had never flinched, even for an instant, from representing Ballinger. Moreover, he had believed, at least in the very beginning, that he could and should win the case. Margaret’s accusation was unfair. He still stung from the injustice of it. Perhaps now, with a little time passed, she would know that.

He told Ardmore he would be out for an hour or two. After collecting his hat and coat, he went into the lamplit streets to look for a hansom.

H
E ARRIVED AT THE NEW
, far smaller house that Mrs. Ballinger had taken after her husband’s death. It was the fifth place down on a very ordinary terrace, a dramatic fall from the wealth and fashion of the house in which they had lived before, the one in which Margaret had grown up.

As Rathbone stood on the pavement and looked at it, he felt a stab of pity, almost of shame, for the beautiful home he had moved into when he first married Margaret. She had done the interior, choosing the colors and fabrics, which were subtle and beautiful. They were more
daring than he would have picked, but once they were in place he liked them. They made his previous conservative taste seem bland. She had placed the pictures, the vases, the best of the ornaments. Some of them were wedding gifts.

She had enjoyed being Lady Rathbone. He knew with sadness, and a bitter humor, that she had now stopped using the title, although she could hardly call herself Mrs. Rathbone. There was no such person. Neither of them had mentioned the subject of divorce, although the question of it hung between them, waiting for the inevitable decision. When would that be?

Perhaps he should not have come. She might raise it now, and he was not ready. He did not know what he wanted to say. Neither of them had sinned in the way usually accepted as making a marriage intolerable. Sometimes one or the other party invented an affair and admitted to it, but Margaret would never do that, and Rathbone realized as he stood on the front doorstep, that neither would he. Neither had wronged the other, in that sense. They were simply morally incompatible, and perhaps that was worse. It was not a matter of forgiving. The division was not in what either had done, but in what they were.

A parlor maid opened the door and her face registered her dismay when she recognized him.

“Good evening,” Rathbone said, unable to remember her name, if he had ever known it. “Is Mrs. Ballinger at home?”

“If you’ll come in, Sir Oliver, I’ll ask if she’s able to see you.” She stood back to allow him into the narrow hall, so different from the handsome, spacious one in the old house. It was darker, somehow shabbier, in spite of the homely touches and the clean smell of polish.

There was no place for him to wait except there. The house had no morning room or study, just a simple parlor, dining room, and kitchens, probably just one to cook in, and a scullery for washing dishes. There was hardly need for more than a cook/housekeeper, one maid and a manservant of some sort, and perhaps one lady’s maid for both Margaret and her mother. Rathbone wondered wryly how much of this was paid for by his very generous allowance. Wherever she chose to live, she was still his wife.

The maid appeared again, her face careful to show no expression.

“Mrs. Ballinger will see you, Sir Oliver, if you will come this way, please.” She led him not to the parlor but to an unexpected small room next to the baize door into the kitchen. Possibly it was the housekeeper’s room.

Mrs. Ballinger was standing inside. She wore black. Incredibly, it was only weeks since Ballinger had died—it felt like months had passed. Rathbone felt a wave of pity as he looked at her. She seemed smaller, as if everything in her life had shrunk. Her hair had faded and looked thinner; her shoulders sagged so that her gown hung awkwardly, even though it was an excellent one, kept from happier times. She did not fill it out as she used to. Her face was pale but there was a flicker of hope in her eyes.

Rathbone found himself floundering for words. He knew she wanted a reconciliation between himself and Margaret, hoped that their happiness could be rebuilt, even if her own could not. Margaret’s anger and misery must weigh even more heavily on her than any other. Rathbone was certain of that as he looked at her face now. He had never really liked her. She had seemed to him self-absorbed, unimaginative, in many ways superficial in her judgments. Now he was overwhelmed with compassion for her, and he knew he could do nothing to help, except perhaps keep his temper, try harder to reach some accommodation with Margaret.

Had Margaret ever thought what her bitterness was costing her mother? Or was she too filled with her own pain to consider anyone else’s? Rathbone realized with a cutting self-awareness that the very anger he wanted to control for Mrs. Ballinger’s sake had welled up inside again, scalding him.

They were standing, facing each other in silence. It was up to him to speak first, to explain why he had come, uninvited and at this hour of the evening. Without planning to be, he was uncharacteristically gentle.

“I wanted to see how you were,” he began, as if that were the kind of emotion he often felt. “There might be something I could do that I haven’t thought of. If you would permit me?”

She was silent for several moments, weighing his intention behind the words.

“For Margaret’s sake?” she asked finally. “You must still hate Mr. Ballinger and me because of him. I had no idea …” It sounded like an excuse, and she stopped as soon as she realized it.

“I never imagined that you knew,” he said quickly, and honestly. “The shock of finding out such a thing, and beginning to understand what it meant is enough to paralyze almost anyone. And you had no alternative except loyalty. By the time you knew of it there was nothing to be done to save anyone.”

She looked puzzled for a moment, as if trying to distinguish between his judgment of her, and his judgment of Margaret.

“You were his wife,” he said, in self-defense as well as by way of explanation.

“Have you come to see Margaret?” Hope refused to die in her.

“If I may?” That was a polite fiction. Mrs. Ballinger had never refused him access to Margaret; it was Margaret herself who would not speak to him.

She hesitated. He knew she was considering not whether to take the message, but how; what manner would offer any chance of success.

“I will go to ask her,” she said at last. “Please wait here. I …” She swallowed with difficulty. “I would rather not have a scene that would embarrass any of us.”

“Of course,” he agreed.

It was nearly a quarter of an hour before she returned, which showed a measure of the difficulty she had had in persuading Margaret. As Rathbone thanked her and followed her back across the hall, he found himself increasingly angry with Margaret, not on his own behalf but on her mother’s. He could not even imagine the blow Mrs. Ballinger had taken from her husband’s guilt, and then his murder cutting off all hope of a reprieve. Not that there had been any. He would have died with the hangman’s noose around his throat. Her entire world had collapsed hideously. She had no one but her children on whom to lean. The failure of Margaret’s marriage and her refusal to accept her father’s guilt must keep all the wounds open and bleeding.

Margaret was standing in the middle of the overcrowded parlor, waiting for him. She was very plainly dressed. Like her mother, she was still in black, although hers was relieved by jet jewelry and a brooch set
with seed pearls, a tiny glimmer of white against the darkness. As always, she stood with grace, her head high, but she was thinner than the last time he had seen her, and very pale, almost colorless.

She did not speak.

To ask how she was would be absurdly formal, setting a tone that would be hard to break. Her health had always been excellent and it was hardly the issue between them; any distress she felt now was emotional.

He felt awkward and knew that in his immaculately tailored clothes he must look out of place in this room with its drab walls, and too many family pictures on every surface. What could he say that was honest? Why had he come?

“I wanted to talk to you …,” he began. “To see if we could understand each other a little better, perhaps move toward some kind of reconciliation …” He stopped. Her face gave nothing away, and he felt both foolish and vulnerable.

Her fair eyebrows rose. “Are you saying what you think you ought to, Oliver?” she asked quietly, no lift in her voice. “Paving the way to justify yourself because you want to set me aside with a clear conscience? After all, you need to be able to tell your colleagues that you tried. It would reflect poorly on you if you didn’t. Everyone would understand that an eminent lawyer like you would not wish to be married to the daughter of a criminal, but you should at least not make that offensively clear.”