Acceptable Loss (2 page)

“I know.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “And that isn’t the only problem.”

She waited, her heart pounding. They had avoided saying it; all their time and emotion was concentrated on Scuff. But she had known it would have to come. Now she looked at the lines of strain in Monk’s face, the shadows around his eyes, the lean, high cheekbones. There was a vulnerability there that only she understood.

She thought of Oliver Rathbone, who had been both Monk’s friend and hers for so long, and beside whom they had fought desperate battles for justice, often at the risk of their reputations, even their lives. They had sat up for endless nights searching for answers, had
faced victory and disaster together, horrors of grief, pity, and disillusion. Rathbone had once loved Hester, but she had chosen Monk. Then he had married Margaret Ballinger and found a happiness far better suited to his nature. Margaret could give him children, but more obvious than that, she was socially his equal. She was of a calmer, more judicious nature than Hester; she knew how to behave as Lady Rathbone, wife of the most gifted barrister in London, should.

Was it really conceivable that Margaret’s father had been the power and the money behind Jericho Phillips’s abominations? That is what Lord Justice Sullivan had claimed, right before his terrible suicide at Execution Dock. Hester longed for Monk to tell her that it was not true.

“You heard what Rathbone said about Arthur Ballinger and Phillips?” Monk said.

“Yes. Has he said anything more?”

“No. I suppose there’s nothing legal, or he would have. He’d have no choice.”

“You mean there’s no proof, just Sullivan’s word—and he’s dead anyway?”

“Yes.”

“But you believe it?” That also was not really a question.

“Of course I do,” he said very softly. “Rathbone believes it, and do you think he would if there were any way in heaven or hell that he could avoid it?”

Monk lifted up his hand and touched Hester’s cheek so softly, she felt the warmth of him more than the brush of his skin against hers.

“I have to know if Ballinger was involved, for Scuff, so at least he knows I’m trying,” he continued. “And Rathbone has to know too, however much he would prefer not to.”

“Are you going to speak to him?”

“I’ve been avoiding it, and so has he. He’s been in court on another case for the last two weeks, but it’s finished now and I can’t put it off any longer.”

“Are you sure he needs to know?” she pressed. “The pain of it would be intolerable, and he would have no choice but to do something about it.”

“That’s not like you,” he said ruefully.

“To want to avoid someone else’s pain?” She was momentarily indignant.

“To be evasive,” he corrected her. “You are too good a nurse to want to put a bandage on something that you know needs surgery. If it’s gangrene, you must take off the arm, or the patient will die. You taught me that.”

“Am I being a coward?” She winced as she said the word. She knew that to a soldier, “coward” was the worst word in any language, worse even than “cheat” or “thief.”

Monk leaned forward and kissed her, lingering only a moment. “You don’t need courage if you aren’t afraid,” he answered. “It takes a little while to be certain you have no alternative. Scuff needs to know that we care enough for the truth itself, not just to rescue him and then turn away. I think Rathbone would want that too, whatever the cost.”

“Whatever?” she questioned.

He hesitated. “Maybe not at any cost, but that doesn’t change the reality of it.”

H
ESTER WENT TO THE
clinic that she had set up to treat and care for prostitutes and other street women who were sick or injured. It survived on charitable donations, and Margaret Rathbone was by far the most dedicated and the most able among those who sought and obtained such money. Margaret also spent a certain amount of time actually working there, cooking, cleaning, and practicing the little light nursing that she had learned from Hester. Of course she had done rather less of such work since her marriage, and no longer did nights. Still, Hester did not look forward to seeing her today and hoped it would be one of those times when Margaret was otherwise engaged.

She walked from Paradise Place down the hill to the ferry. The autumn wind was blustery, salt-smelling. From Wapping she took an omnibus westward toward Holborn. It was a long journey, but it was necessary that they live near Monk’s work. His was a reasonably new
position, back in the police again after years of being a private agent of inquiry, when he’d lurched from one case to another with no certainty of payment. For less than a year he had been head of the River Police in this area, which was a profoundly responsible position. There was no one in England with better skills in detection, or more courage and dedication—and, some might say, ruthlessness. But his art in managing men and placating his superiors in the political hierarchy was altogether another matter.

If the circumstances caused Hester a little more traveling, it was a small enough contribution to his success. Added to which, she really did like the house in Paradise Place, with its view over the infinitely changing water, not to mention the freedom from financial anxiety that a regular income gave them.

She walked briskly along Portpool Lane under the shadow of the Reid Brewery, and in at the door of the house that had once been part of a huge brothel. It was Oliver Rathbone who had helped her obtain the building, quite legally, but with considerable coercion of its previous owner, Squeaky Robinson. Squeaky had remained here, a partially reformed character. To begin with he had stayed because he had had nowhere else to go, but now he took a certain pride in the place, oozing self-righteousness at his newfound respectability.

Squeaky was in the entrance as she came in, his face gaunt, his stringy gray-white hair down to his collar as usual. He was wearing an ancient frock coat and today had on a faded silk cravat.

“We need more money,” he said as soon as Hester was through the door. “I dunno how you expect me to do all these things on sixpence ha’penny!”

“You had fifty pounds just a week ago,” she replied. She was so used to Squeaky’s complaints that she would have worried if he had said that all was well.

“Mrs. Margaret says we’re going to need new pans in the kitchen soon,” he retaliated. “Lots of ’em. Big ones. Sometimes I think we’re feeding half London.”

“Lady Rathbone,” Hester corrected him automatically. “And pans do wear out, Squeaky. They get to the point where they can’t be mended anymore.”

“Then, you tell her ladyship to come up with some money for ’em,” he said waspishly.

“What happened to the fifty pounds?”

“Sheets and medicines,” he replied instantly. “You can tell her now. She’s through there.” He jerked his head sideways, indicating the door to his left.

There was no point in putting it off. Not only would it look like cowardice, it would feel like it. As if obedient to his instruction, she went through into the next room.

Margaret Rathbone was standing near the central table with a pale blue notepad in her hand, and a pencil poised. She looked up as Hester came in. There was a moment’s total silence between them, as if neither had expected to see the other, and yet both of them must have been preparing for this inevitable meeting. It was the first since Lord Justice Sullivan’s suicide, and the accusations he had then made against Margaret’s father—that he was the force behind the pornography—and the blackmail that had finally ruined the judge. There was no proof, just unforgettable words, and drowned bodies. Margaret would never admit the possibility, but Hester could not deny it. It left them no bridge to each other.

Margaret was not a beautiful woman, but her features were regular and her bearing unusually graceful. She had a dignity without arrogance—an unusual gift. Now she put the notepad down and looked unblinkingly at Hester. Her expression was guarded, as yet without warmth.

“I have the new sheets,” she remarked. “Two dozen of them. They will more than make up for those we have to get rid of.”

“The old ones will be good to tear up for bandages,” Hester replied, walking farther into the room. “Thank you.”

Margaret looked a little surprised, as if thanking her were inappropriate. “It was not my money,” she observed.

“We would not have it if you had not persuaded someone to donate it,” Hester pointed out. She made herself smile. “But as always, Squeaky is now complaining that the old pans cannot be mended anymore and we need new ones.”

“Do we?”

Hester relaxed a little. “We will do. All I said was that we should start saving for them. I swear he wouldn’t be happy if he didn’t have something to be miserable about.”

There was a polite tap on the door. Hester answered it, and Claudine Burroughs came in. She was a broad-hipped middle-aged woman with a face that had once been handsome, but time and unhappiness had taken away her bloom. She had discovered both her independence of spirit and a considerable purpose in life when she had volunteered to help in the clinic, mostly to irritate her unimaginative husband. She had defied his orders to cease her association with such a place, with more courage than she had known she possessed.

“Good morning, Mrs. Monk,” she said cheerfully. “Morning, Lady Rathbone.” Without waiting for a reply she launched into an account of the new patients who had been admitted since yesterday evening, and the progress of the more serious cases that had been there for some time. There were the usual fevers, stab wounds, a dislocated shoulder, sores, and infestations. The only thing less ordinary was an abscess, which Claudine reported triumphantly she had lanced, and which was now clean and should heal.

Margaret winced at the thought of the pain, not to mention the mess.

Hester applauded Claudine’s medical confidence. They moved on to other housekeeping matters. Then they went to see the more serious cases, speaking only of business, and the morning passed quickly.

When Hester came downstairs to the entrance hall again, she found Oliver Rathbone waiting. She was startled to see him, off guard because she had been trying not to imagine what Monk would have said to him about Ballinger. Now a glance at Rathbone’s face—sensitive, intelligent, faintly quizzical—and she knew that Monk had not spoken to him yet. She felt guilty, as if in knowing what was to come and not saying it, she were somehow deceiving him.

“Good morning, Oliver,” she said with a slight smile. “If you are looking for Margaret, she is in the medicine room.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Are you in a hurry?”

She could have kicked herself for dismissing him so quickly. She had not only been discourteous, she had made her unease obvious. Would apologizing make it worse?

“Are you all right, Hester?” he asked, taking a step toward her. “What about Scuff? How is he?”

Rathbone had been with them when they had searched so frantically for Scuff. He knew exactly how she’d felt. The horror of that day had touched him as nothing else had ever done in his life of prosecuting or defending some of the worst crimes in London. She saw the memory of it in his eyes now, and the gentleness. Stupidly the tears prickled in her own, and her throat was tight with the fear of what might come for him, if Sullivan had been telling the truth. She turned away so he could not read her face.

“He still has awful nightmares,” she replied a little huskily. “I’m afraid it’s going to take …” She hesitated. “Time.”

“What will it take for him ever to be over it?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Thinking it’s over for his friends, other boys like him. Not lies.”

He smiled very slightly. “He’d never believe you anyway, Hester. You’re a terrible liar. Totally transparent.”

She met his eyes with a flash of wit. “Or else I’m so good that you’ve never caught me?”

For an instant his face was blank with surprise, and then he laughed.

At that moment Margaret came in. Hester turned toward her and was struck with a sudden, quite unnecessary stab of guilt. She was relieved when Rathbone stepped around her, his face lighting with pleasure.

“Margaret! My big case is over. Have you time to join me for luncheon?”

“I’d be delighted,” she replied without looking at Hester. “Especially if you can help me think of anyone further whom I can ask for money. We have new sheets, but soon we shall need pots and pans.” She did not add that she was the only one raising funds, but it hung, unspoken, in the air.

Hester felt ashamed for her own failure to raise money, but Margaret’s
marriage to Rathbone gave her a position in society that Hester would never have. That fact was too obvious for either of them to need to say it. It was also unnecessary to add that Margaret’s courtesy and natural good manners yielded far more reward than Hester’s outspoken candor. People liked to feel that they were doing their Christian duty toward the less fortunate, but definitely not that they owed it in any way. And they certainly did not wish to hear the details of poverty or disease.

“Thank you,” Hester said mildly, although it cost her an effort. “It would certainly be a great help.”

Margaret smiled and took Rathbone’s arm.

B
Y THE MIDDLE OF
the afternoon Hester had had little more for luncheon than a cold cheese sandwich and a cup of tea. She was helping one of the women finish the scrubbing when Rupert Cardew arrived. She was on her knees on the floor, a brush in her hand, a pail of soapy water beside her. She heard the footsteps and then saw the polished boots stop about a yard in front of her.

She sat back and looked up slowly. He was at least as tall as Monk, but fair where Monk was dark, and, on his recent visits to the clinic to add to their funding, so relaxed as to be casual. Monk, on the other hand, was always intensely alive, waiting to move.

“Sorry,” Rupert apologized with a smile. “Didn’t mean to catch you on your knees. But if you were praying for more money, then I’m here with the answer.”

Hester climbed to her feet, declining his outstretched hand to assist her. Her plain blue skirt was wet where she had kneeled; and her white blouse, unadorned with lace, was rolled up above her elbows, and also wet in places. Her hair—not always her best feature—had been pinned back and adjusted several times as it had escaped, and was now completely shapeless.