A sudden, fearful death - Anne Perry [74]
Julia swallowed hard and opened her mouth, but before she could reply, Marianne cut across her.
“I do not wish to bear the child,” she said, her voice rising sharply in something like panic. “I don’t care how discreet the physician is, or how easily he could place it afterwards. Can’t you understand? The whole event was a nightmare! I want to forget it, not live with it as a constant reminder every day!”
“I wish I could offer you a way of escape,” Sir Herbert said again, his expression pained. “But I cannot. How long ago did this happen?”
“Three weeks and five days,” Marianne answered immediately.
“Three weeks?” Sir Herbert said incredulously, his eyebrows high. “But my dear girl, you cannot possibly know that you are with child! There will be no quickening for another three or four months at the very earliest. I should go home and cease to worry.”
“I am with child!” Marianne said with hard, very suppressed fury. “The midwife said so, and she is never wrong. She can tell merely by looking at a woman’s face, without any of the other signs.” Her own expression set in anger and pain, and she stared at him defiantly.
He sighed. “Possibly. But it does not alter the case. The law is very plain. There used to be a distinction between aborting a fetus before it had quickened and after, but that has now been done away with. It is all the same.” He sounded weary, as if he had said all this before. “And of course it used to be a hanging offense. Now it is merely a matter of ruin and imprisonment. But whatever the punishment, Miss Gillespie, it is a crime I am not prepared to commit, however tragic the circumstances. I am truly sorry.”
Julia remained sitting. “We should naturally expect to pay—handsomely.”
A small muscle flickered in Sir Herbert’s cheeks.
“I had not assumed you were asking it as a gift. But the matter of payment is irrelevant. I have tried to explain to you why I cannot do it.” He looked from one to the other of them. “Please believe me, my decision is absolute. I am not unsympathetic, indeed I am not. I grieve for you. But I cannot help.”
Marianne rose to her feet and put her hand on Julia’s shoulder.
“Come. We shall achieve nothing further here. We shall have to seek help elsewhere.” She turned to Sir Herbert. “Thank you for your time. Good day.”
Julia climbed to her feet very slowly, still half lingering, as if there were some hope.
“Elsewhere?” Sir Herbert said with a frown. “I assure you, Miss Gillespie, no reputable surgeon will perform such an operation for you.” He drew in his breath sharply, and suddenly his face took on a curiously pinched look, quite different from the slight complacence before. This had a sharp note of reality. “And I beg you, please do not go to the back-street practitioners,” he urged. “They will assuredly do it for you, and very possibly ruin you for life; at worst bungle it so badly you become infected and either bleed to death or die in agony of septicemia.”
Both women froze, staring at him, eyes wide.
He leaned forward, his hands white-knuckled on the desk.
“Believe me, Miss Gillespie, I am not trying to distress you unnecessarily. I know what I am speaking about. My own daughter was the victim of such a man! She too was molested, as you were. She was only sixteen….” His voice caught for a moment, and he had to force himself to continue. Only his inner anger overcame his grief. “We never found who the man was. She told us nothing about it. She was too frightened,