A sudden, fearful death - Anne Perry [27]
“Stop it!” This time the cry was torn from her in a frenzy of pain. “Stop it! You have told me. That is sufficient.” With a terrible effort she mastered herself, although her hands were shaking uncontrollably.
“When I taxed her with it, she denied it at first, to protect you.” He went on relentlessly. It had to be finished now. “Then when it was obviously true from her own testimony, and that of your neighbors, she admitted it, but implored me not to say so. I think the only reason she made any mention of the incident at all was to account for her extreme distress after it, and for the bruising. Otherwise I think she would have remained silent, for your sake.”
“Poor Marianne.” Her voice trembled violently. “She would endure that for me. What harm have I done her?”
He moved a step nearer to her, undecided whether to sit without invitation or remain standing, towering over her. He opted to sit.
“You cannot blame yourself,” he said earnestly. “You of all people are the most innocent in this.”
“No I am not, Mr. Monk.” She did not look at him but at some distance far beyond the green shadow of leaves across the window. Her voice was now filled with self-loathing. “Audley is a man with natural expectations, and I have denied him all the years we have been married.” She hunched into herself as if suddenly the room were intolerably cold, her fingers gripping her arms painfully, driving the blood out of the flesh.
He wanted to interrupt her and tell her the explanation was private and quite unnecessary, but he knew she needed to tell him, to rid herself of a burden she could no longer bear.
“I should not have, but I was so afraid.” She was shivering very slightly, as if her muscles were locked. “You see, my mother had child after child between my birth and Marianne’s. All of them miscarried or died. I watched her in such pain.” Very slowly she began rocking herself back and forth as if in some way the movement eased her as the words poured out. “I remember her looking so white, and the blood on the sheets. Lots of it, great dark red stains as though her life were pouring out of her. They tried to hide them from me, and keep me in my own room. But I heard her crying with the pain of it, and I saw the maids hurrying about with bundles of linen, and trying to fold it so no one saw.” The tears were running down her own face now and she made no pretense of concealing them. “And then when I was allowed in to see her, she would look so tired, with dark rings ’round her eyes, and her lips white. I knew she had been crying for the baby that was lost, and I couldn’t bear it!”
Without thinking Monk put out his hands and held hers. Unconsciously she clung to him, her fingers strong, gripping him like a lifeline.
“I knew she had dreaded it, every time she was with child. I felt the terror in her, even though I didn’t know then what caused it. And when Marianne was born she was so pleased.” She smiled as she remembered, and for a moment her eyes were tender and brilliant with gentleness. “She held her up and showed her to me, as if we had done it together. The midwife wanted to send me away, but Mama wouldn’t let her. I think she knew then she was dying. She made me promise to look after Marianne as if I were in her place, to do for her what Mama could not.”
Julia was weeping quite openly now. Monk ached for her, and for his own helplessness, and for all the terrified, lost, and grieving women.
“I stayed with her all that night,” she went on, still rocking herself. “In the morning the bleeding started again, and they took me out, but I can remember the doctor being sent for. He went up the stairs with his face very grave and his black bag in his hand. There were more sheets carried out, and all the maids were frightened and the butler stood around looking sad. Mama died in the morning. I don’t remember what time, but I knew it. It was as if