Defend and Betray (23 page)

Up the stairs and along the landing Monk followed Hagger until they came to the master bedroom, apparently the general's, past his dressing room next door, and on to a very fine sunny and spacious room which he announced as being Mrs. Carlyon's. Opening off it to the left was a dressing room where cupboard doors stood open and a ladies' maid was busy brushing down a blue-gray outdoor cape which must have suited Alexandra's fair coloring excellently.

The girl looked up in surprise as she saw Hagger, and Monk behind him. Monk judged her to be in her mid-twenties, thin and dark, but with a remarkably pleasant countenance.

Hagger wasted no time. “Ginny, this is Mr. Monk. He is working for the mistress's lawyers, trying to find out something that will help her. He wants to ask you some questions, and you will answer him as much as you can—anything 'e wants to know. Understand?”

“Yes, Mr. Hagger.” She looked very puzzled, but not unwilling.

“Right.” Hagger turned to Monk. “You come down when you're ready, an' if there's ought else as can 'elp, let me know.”

“I will, thank you, Mr. Hagger. You have been most obliging,” Monk accepted. Then as soon as Hagger had departed and closed the door, he turned to the maid.

“Go on with what you are doing,” he requested. “I shall be sometime.”

“I'm sure I don't know what I can tell you,” Ginny said, obediently continuing to brush the cape. “She was always a very good mistress to me.”

“In what way good?”

She looked surprised. “Well . . . considerate, like. She apologized if she got anything extra dirty, or if she kept me up extra late. She gave me things as she didn't want no more, and always asked after me family, and the like.”

“You were fond of her?”

“Very fond of 'er, Mr.—”

“Monk.”

“Mr. Monk, can you 'elp 'er now? I mean, after she said as she done it?” Her face was puckered with anxiety.

“I don't know,” Monk admitted. “If there were some reason why, that people could understand, it might help.”

“What would anybody understand, as why a lady should kill 'er 'usband?” Ginny put away the cape and brought out a gown of a most unusual deep mulberry shade. She shook it and a perfume came from its folds that caught Monk with a jolt of memory so violent he saw a whole scene of a woman in pink, standing with her back to him, weeping softly. He had no idea what her face was like, except he found it beautiful, and he recalled none of her words. But the feeling was intense, an emotion that shook him and filled his being, an urgency amounting to passion that he must find the truth, and free her from a terrible danger, one that would destroy her life and her reputation.

But who was she? Surely she had nothing to do with Wal-brook? No—one thing seemed to resolve in his mind. When Walbrook was ruined, and Monk's own career in commerce came to an end, he had not at that point even thought of becoming a policeman. That was what had decided him— his total inability to either help Walbrook and his wife, or even to avenge them and put his enemy out of business.

The woman in pink had turned to him because he was a policeman. It was his job to find the truth.

But he could not bring her face to mind, nor anything to do with the case, except that she was suspected of murder-murdering her husband—like Alexandra Carlyon.

Had he succeeded? He did not even know mat. Or for that matter, if she was innocent or guilty. And why had he cared with such personal anguish? What had been their relationship? Had she cared for him as deeply, or was she simply turning to him because she was desperate and terrified?

“Sir?” Ginny was staring at him. “Are you all right, sir?”

“Oh—oh yes, thank you. What did you say?”

“What would folks reckon was a reason why it might be all right for a lady to kill 'er 'usband? I don't know of none.”

“Why do you think she did it?” Monk asked baldly, his wits still too scattered to be subtle. “Was she jealous of Mrs. Furnival?”

“Oh no sir.” Ginny dismissed it out of hand. “I don't like to speak ill of me betters, but Mrs. Furnival weren't the kind o' person to—well, sir, I don't rightly know 'ow to put it-”

“Simply.” Monk's attention was entirely on her now, the memory dismissed for the time being. “Just in your own words. Don't worry if it sounds ill—you can always take it back, if you want.”

“Thank you, sir,
I'm
sure.”

“Mrs. Furnival.”

“Well, sir, she's what my granny used to call a flighty piece, sir, beggin' yer pardon, all smiles and nods and eyes all over the place. Likes the taste o' power, but not one to fell what you'd call in love, not to care for anyone.”

“But the general might have cared for her? Was he a good judge of women?”

“Lord, sir, he didn't hardly know one kind o' woman from another, if you take my meaning. He wasn't no ladies' man.”

“Isn't that just the sort that gets taken in by the likes of anyone such as Mrs. Furnival?”

“No sir, because 'e weren't susceptible like. I seen 'er when she was 'ere to dinner, and he weren't interested 'ceptin' business and casual talking like to a friend. And Mrs. Carlyon, she knew that, sir. There weren't no cause for 'er to be jealous, and she never imagined there were. Besides ...” She stopped, the pink color up her cheeks.

“Besides what, Ginny?”

Still she hesitated.

“Ginny, Mrs. Carlyon's life is at stake. As it is, if we don't find some good reason, she'll hang! Surely you don't think she did it without a good reason, do you?”

“Oh no sir! Never!”

“Wellthen. . .”

“Well, sir, Mrs. Carlyon weren't that fond o' the general anyway, as to mind all that terrible if occasionally 'e took 'is pleasures elsewhere, if you know what I mean?”

“Yes, I know what you mean. Quite a common enough arrangement, when a couple have been married a long time, no doubt. And did Mrs. Carlyon—have other interests?”

She colored very faintly, but did not evade the subject.

“Some time ago, sir, I did rather think as she favored a Mr. Ives, but it was only a little flattery, and enjoying his company, like. And there was Mr. McLaren, who was obviously very taken with 'er, but I don't think she more than passing liked him. And of course she was always fond of Mr. Furnival, and at one time ...” She lowered her eyes. “But that was four years ago now. And if you ask if she ever did anything improper, I can tell you as she didn't. And bein”er maid, like, an' seein' all 'er most private things, I would know, I'll be bound.”

“Yes, I imagine you would,” Monk said. He was inclined to believe her, in spite of the fact that she could only be biased. “Well, if the general was not overly fond of Mrs. Furnival, is it possible he was fond of someone else, another lady, perhaps?”

“Well, if he was, sir, 'e hid it powerful well,” she said vehemently. “Holmes, that's his valet, didn't know about it—an' I reckon he'd have at least an idea. No sir, I'm sorry, I can't 'elp you at all. I truly believe as the general was an exemplary man in that respect. Everything in loyalty an' honor a woman would want.”

“And in other respects?” Monk persisted. He glanced along the row of cupboards. “It doesn't look as if he kept her short of money?”

“Oh no, sir. I don't think 'e was very interested in what the mistress wore, but 'e weren't never mean about it one bit. Always 'ad all she wanted, an' more.”

“Sounds like a model husband,” Monk said dispiritedly.

“Well, yes, I suppose so—for a lady, that is,” she conceded, watching his face.

“But not what you would like?” he asked.

“Me? Well—well sir, I think as I'd want someone who— maybe this sounds silly, you bein' a gentleman an' all—but I'd want someone as I could 'ave fun with—talk to, like. A man who'd. . .”She colored fiercely now. “Who'd give me a bit of affection—if you see what I mean, sir.”

“Yes, I see what you mean.” Monk smiled at her without knowing quite why. Some old memory of warmth came back to him, the kitchen in his mother's house in Northumberland, her standing there at the table with her sleeves rolled up, and cuffing him gently around the ear for being cheeky, but it was more a caress than a discipline. She had been proud of him. He knew that beyond doubt in that moment. He had written regularly from London, letting her know how he was doing, of his career and what he hoped to achieve. And she had written back, short, oddly spelled letters in a round hand, but full of pride. He had sent money when he could, which was quite often. It pleased him to help her, after all the lean, sacrificing years, and it was a mark of his success.

Then after Walbrook's ruin, there had been no more money. And in embarrassment he had ceased to write. What utter stupidity! As if that would have mattered to her. What a pride he had. What an ugly, selfish pride.

“Of course I know what you mean,” he said again to the maid. “Perhaps Mrs. Carlyon felt the same way, do you suppose?”

“Oh I wouldn't know, sir. Ladies is different. They don't— well...”

“They didn't share a room?”

“Oh no, sir—not since I been here. And I 'eard from Lucy, as I took over from, not before that neither. But then gentry don't, do they? They got bigger 'ouses than the likes of my ma and pa.”

“Or mine,” Monk agreed. “Was she happy?”

Ginny frowned, looking at him guardedly.”No sir, I don't mink as she were.”

“Did she change lately in any way?”

“She's been awful worried over something lately. An' she and the general 'ad a terrible row six months ago—but there's no use askin' me what about, because I don't know. She shut the doors and sent me away. I just know because o' the way she was all white-faced and spoke to no one, and the way she looked like she seen death face-to-face. But that was six months ago, an' I thought it was all settled again.”

“Did he ever hurt her physically, Ginny?”

“Great 'eaven's, no!” She shook her head, looking at him with deep distress. “I can't 'elp you, sir, nor 'er. I really don't know of anything at all as why she should 'ave killed 'im. He were cold, and terrible tedious, but 'e were generous with 'is money, faithful to 'er, well-spoken, didn't drink too much nor gamble nor keep fast company. And although 'e were terrible 'ard to Miss Sabella over that going into a nunnery business, he were the best father to young master Cas-sian as a boy could ask. And terrible fond of 'im Master Cassian were, poor little thing. If it weren't that I know as she wasn't a wicked woman, I'd think—well, I'd think as she were.”

“Yes,” Monk said miserably. “Yes—I am afraid I would too. Thank you for your time, Ginny. I'll take myself downstairs.”

It was not until Monk had fruitlessly interviewed the rest of the staff, who bore out what Hagger and Ginny had said, partaken of luncheon in the servants' hall, and was outside in the street that he realized just how much of his own life had come back to him unbidden: his training in commerce, his letters home, Walbrook's ruin and his own consequent change of fortune—but not the face of the woman who so haunted him, who she was, or why he cared so intensely . . . or what had happened to her.

Chapter 6

With Major Tiplady's enthusiastic permission, Hester accepted an invitation to dine with Oliver Rathbone in the very proper circumstances of taking a hansom to the home in Primrose Hill of Rathbone's father, who proved to be an elderly gentleman of charm and distinction.

Hester, determined not to be late, actually arrived before Rathbone himself, who had been held up by a jury taking far longer to return than foreseen. She alighted at the address given her, and when she was admitted by the manservant, found herself in a small sitting room. It opened onto a garden in which late daffodils were blowing in the shade under the trees and a massive honeysuckle vine all but drowned the gate in the wall leading into a very small, overgrown orchard whose apples, in full blossom, she could just see over the top.

The room itself was crowded with books of various shapes and sizes, obviously positioned according to subject matter and not to please the eye. On the walls were several paintings in watercolors, one which she noticed immediately because it held a place of honor above the mantel. It was of a youth in costume of leather doublet and apron, sitting on the base of a pillar. The whole work was in soft earth colors, ochers and sepia, except for the dark red of his cap, and it was unfinished; the lower half of his body, and a small dog he reached out to stroke, were still in sketch form.

“You like it?” Henry Rathbone asked her. He was taller than his son, and very lean, shoulders stooped as from many years of intensive study. His face was aquiline, all nose and jaw, and yet there was a serenity in it, a mildness that set her at ease the moment she saw him. His gray hair was very sparse, and he looked at her with shortsighted blue eyes.

“Yes I do, very much,” she answered honestly. “The more I look at it, the more it pleases me.”

“It is my favorite,” he agreed. “Perhaps because it is unfinished. Completed it might have been harder, more final. This leaves room for the imagination, almost a sense of collaboration with the artist.”

She knew precisely what he meant, and found herself smiling at him.

They moved on to discuss other things, and she questioned him shamelessly because she was so interested, and because she was so comfortable with him. He had traveled in many foreign places, and indeed spoke the German language fluently. He seemed not to have been enraptured with scenery, totally unlike herself, but he had met and Mien into conversations with all manner of unlikely people in little old shops which he loved rummaging through. No one was too outwardly ordinary to excite his interest, or for him to have discovered some aspect of their lives which was unique.

She barely noticed that Rathbone was an hour late, and when he came in in a flurry of apologies, she was amused to see the consternation in his face that no one had missed him, except the cook, whose preparations were discommoded.

“Never mind,” Henry Rathbone said easily, rising to his feet. “It is not worth being upset about. It cannot be helped. Miss Latterly, please come into the dining room; we shall do the best we can with what there is.”

“You should have started without me,” Oliver said with a flash of irritation across his face. “Then you would have had it at its best.”

“There is no need to feel guilty,” his father replied. He indicated where Hester was to sit, and the manservant held her chair for her. “We know you were detained unavoidably. And I believe we were enjoying ourselves.”

“Indeed I was,” Hester said sincerely, and took her place.

The meal was served. The soup was excellent, and Ram-bone made no comment; to do so now would be so obviously ungracious. When the fish was brought, a little dry from having had to wait, he bit into it and met Hester's eye, but refrained from comment.

“I spoke with Monk yesterday,” he said at length. “I am afraid we have made almost no progress.”

Hester was disappointed, yet die mere fact that he had kept from mentioning the subject for so long had forewarned her that the news would be poor.

“That only means that we have not yet discovered the reason,” she said doggedly.”We shall have to look harder.”

“Or persuade her to tell us,” Oliver added, placing his knife and fork together and indicating to the manservant that he might remove the plates.

The vegetables were a trifle overdone by any standard, but the cold saddle of mutton was perfect, and the array of pickles and chutneys with it rich and full of variety and interest.

“Are you acquainted with the case, Mr. Rathbone?” Hester turned to Henry enquiringly, not wishing him to be excluded from the conversation.

“Oliver has mentioned it,” he replied, helping himself liberally to a dark chutney. “What is it you hope to find?”

“The true reason why she killed him. Unfortunately it is beyond question that she did.”

“What reason has she given you?”

“Jealousy of her hostess of that evening, but we know that is not true. She said she believed her husband was having an affair with this woman, Louisa Furnival, but we know that he was not, and that she knew that.”

“But she will not tell you the truth?”

“No.”

He frowned, cutting off a piece of meat and spreading it liberally with the chutney and mashed potato.

“Let us be logical about it,” he said thoughtfully. “Did she plan this murder before she committed it? “

“We don't know. There is nothing to indicate whether she did or not.”

“So it might have been a spur-of-the-moment act—lacking forethought, and possibly not considering the consequences either.”

“But she is not a foolish woman,” Hester protested.”She cannot have failed to know she would be hanged.”

“If she was caught!” he argued. “It is possible an overwhelming fury possessed her and she acted unreasonably.”

Hester frowned.

“My dear, it is a mistake to imagine we are all reasonable all of the time,” he said gently. “People act from all sorts of impulses, sometimes quite contrary to their own interests, had they stopped to think. But so often we don't, we do what our emotions drive us to. If we are frightened we either run or freeze motionless, or we lash out, according to our nature and past experience.”

He ignored his food, looking at her with concentration. “I think most tragedies happen when people have had too little time to think or weigh one course against another, or perhaps even to assess the real situation. They leap in before they have seen or understood. And then it is too late.” Ab-sentmindedly he pushed the pickle toward Oliver. “We are full of preconceptions; we judge from our own viewpoint. We believe what we have to, to keep the whole edifice of our views of things to be as they are. A new idea is still the most dangerous thing in the world. A new idea about something close to ourselves, coming quite suddenly and without warning, can make us so disconcerted, so frightened at the idea of all our beliefs about ourselves and those around us crumbling about our ears that we reach to strike at the one who has introduced this explosion into our lives—to deny it, violently if need be.”

“Perhaps we don't know nearly enough about Alexandra Carlyon,” she said thoughtfully, staring at her plate.

“We know a great deal more now than we did a week ago,” Oliver said quietly. “Monk has been to her house and spoken with her servants, but the picture that emerges of both her and the general does nothing to set her in a better light, or explain why she should kill him. He was chilly, and possibly a bore, but he was faithful to her, generous with his money, had an excellent reputation, indeed almost perfect— and he was a devoted father to his son, and not unreasonable to his daughters.”

“He refused to allow Sabella to devote herself to the Church,” Hester said hotly. “And forced her to marry Fen-ton Pole.”

Oliver smiled. “Not unreasonable, really. I think most fathers might well do the same. And Pole seems a decent enough man.”

“He still ordered her against her will,” she protested.

“That is a father's prerogative, especially where daughters are concerned.”

She drew in her breath sharply, longing to remonstrate, even to accuse him of injustice, but she did not want to appear abrasive and ungracious to Henry Rathbone. It was an inappropriate time to pursue her own causes, however justifiable. She liked him more than she had expected, and his ill opinion of her would hurt. He was utterly unlike her own father, who had been very conventional, not greatly given to discussion; and yet in his company she was reminded, with comfort and a stab of pain, of all the wealth of belonging, the ease of family. Her own loneliness was sharpened by the sudden awareness. She had forgotten, perhaps deliberately, how good it had been when her parents were alive, in spite of the restrictions, the discipline and the staid and old-fashioned views. She had chosen to forget, to accommodate her grief.

Now, unaccountably, with Henry Rathbone the best of it returned.

Henry interrupted her thoughts, jerking her back to the present and the Carlyon case. “But that all happened some time ago. The daughter is married already, from what you say?”

“Yes. They have a child,” she said hastily.

“So this may rankle still, but it will not be the motive for murder so long after?”

“No.”

“Let us suggest a hypothesis,” Henry said thoughtfully, his meal almost forgotten. “The crime seems to have been committed on the spur of the moment. Alexandra saw the opportunity and took it—rather clumsily, as it turns out. Which means, if we are correct, either that she learned something that evening which so distressed her that she lost all sense of reason or self-preservation, or that she already wished to kill
him
but had not previously found an opportunity to do it.” He looked at Hester. “Miss Latterly, in your judgment, what might shake a woman so? In other words, what would a woman hold so dear that she would kill to protect it?”

Oliver stopped eating, his fork in the air.

“We haven't looked at it that way,” he said, turning to her. “Hester?”

She thought, wishing to give the most careful and intelligent answer she could.

“Well, I suppose the thing that would make me most likely to act without thinking, even of the risk to myself, would be some threat to the people I loved most—which in Alexandra's case would surely be her children.” She allowed herself a half smile. “Regrettably it was obviously not her husband. To me it would have been my parents and brothers, but all of them except Charles are dead anyway.” She said it because it was high in her mind, not to seek sympathy, then immediately wished she had not. She went on before they could offer any.”But let us say family—and in the case where there are children, I imagine one's home as well. There are some homes that go back for generations, even centuries. I would imagine one might care about them so extremely as to kill to preserve them, or to keep them from felling into the possession of others. But that does not apply here.”

“Not according to Monk,” Oliver agreed, watching with dark, intent eyes. “And anyway, the house is his, not hers— and not an ancestral home in any way. What else?”

Hester smiled wryly, very aware of him. “Well, if I were beautiful, I suppose my looks would also be precious to me. Is Alexandra beautiful?”

He thought for a moment, his face reflecting a curious mixture of humor and pain. “Not beautiful, strictly speaking. But she is most memorable, and perhaps that is better. She has a face of distinct character.”

“So far you have only mentioned one thing which she might care about sufficiently,” Henry Rathbone pointed out. “What about her reputation?”

“Oh yes,” Hester agreed quickly. “If one's honor is sufficiently threatened, if one were to be accused of something wrongfully, that could make one lose one's temper and control and every bit of good sense. It is one of the things I hate above all else. That is a distinct possibility. Or the honor of someone I loved—that would cut equally deeply.”

“Who threatened her honor?” Oliver asked with a frown. “We have heard nothing at all to suggest anyone did. And if it were so, why should she not tell us? Or could it have been someone else's honor? Who? Not his, surely?”

“Blackmail,” Hester said immediately. “A person blackmailed would naturally not tell—or it would reveal the very subject she had killed to hide.”

“By her husband?” Oliver said skeptically. “That would be robbing one pocket to pay the other.”

“Not for money,” she said quickly, leaning forward over the table. “Of course that would make no sense. For something else—perhaps simply power over her.”

“But who would he tell, my dear Hester? Any scandal about her would reflect just as badly upon him. Usually if a woman has disgraced herself, it is the husband whom the blackmailer would tell.”

“Oh.” She saw the point of what he was saying and it made excellent sense. “Yes.” She looked at his eyes, expecting criticism, and saw a gentleness and a humor that for an instant robbed her of her concentration. She was far too comfortable here with the two of them she liked so much. It would be so easy to wish to stay, to wish to belong. She recalled herself rapidly to the subject.

“It doesn't make sense as it is,” she said quietly, lowering her eyes and looking away from him. “You said he was an excellent father, with the exception a couple of years ago of forcing Sabella to marry instead of taking the veil.”

“Then if it doesn't make sense as it is,” Henry said thoughtfully, “it means that either there is some element which you have not thought of, or else you are seeing something wrongly.”

Hester looked at his mild, ascetic face and realized what intelligence there was in his eyes. It was the cleverest face she had seen that held absolutely nothing spiteful or ungenerous whatever. She found herself smiling, without any specific reason.

“Then we had better go back and look at it again,” she resolved aloud. “I think perhaps it is the second of those two cases, and we are seeing something wrongly.”

“Are you sure it is worth it?” Henry asked her gently. “Even if you do discover why she killed him, will it alter anything? Oliver?”