Acceptable Loss - Anne Perry [137]
He started to answer, and then realized that he did not know.
“She is grieving, Oliver.” Hester answered her own question. “She is in too much pain and confusion to listen to reason. She wants a way out of the truth. At least part of her knows she will have to accept it one day, but now she can’t face it. She wants you to rescue her from it, and she blames you because you can’t.”
“She’s not a child!” he said with a flare of his own confusion and loss. “The truth of it is that she has to choose between her father and me, and she chooses him, guilty or not.” Saying it was like cutting his own flesh. “You wouldn’t have done that. You would always choose Monk.”
“I don’t know what I would choose,” she said honestly. “I haven’t had to. There’s part of all of us that chooses the most vulnerable, the one who needs us most, because we can’t live with the guilt of turning our backs on them.”
“Are you thinking of Scuff?”
“I don’t think so. He would never expect me to sacrifice anything for him. I’m not sure he would even understand the idea, although he would do it himself, without thinking.”
“That’s what Margaret wants from me, loyalty without thinking.”
“If you love someone, you do not ask them to destroy the best in themselves,” she answered. “Love also means the freedom to follow your own conscience. If you can’t be true to yourself, you don’t have much left to give anyone else.” Again she touched his arm through the cloth of his jacket. “Don’t give in to temptation because it would be more comfortable for you, in the short term. She needs you to be the best in yourself. In time she will be glad of it.”
“Do you think so?” Rathbone was asking for the answer he wanted to hear.
“I hope so,” was all she could say.
He looked at her steadily, thinking that she possessed a kind of beauty he had not really appreciated before. Her face was too angular, but there was an intense gentleness in it he saw only now. She was awkward at times, too quick; far too clever; her honesty was sometimes painful to receive; but there was a generosity of spirit he needed; and always, always there was courage.
She blushed very slightly and stood up.
“Give her time,” she said again. “And perhaps it would be better not to tell her I called.” She hesitated, then decided not to add any more.
She passed close to him on her way out, but only smiled briefly as she reached the door. “Thank you for the tea.” And she was gone, and the silence washed in again, surrounding him with loneliness.
———
THE FOLLOWING MORNING THE message came from Newgate Prison that Arthur Ballinger wanted to see him, urgently. Rathbone had no choice but to go. He was duty-bound as Ballinger’s lawyer, apart from the fact that Ballinger was Margaret’s father, and a man condemned in a matter of days to be hanged. Less than two weeks were left. Rathbone could not even imagine how that would feel.
He dreaded finding the previously bluff and rather arrogant Ballinger now a pathetic ghost of himself. Would he be frightened of death now? Surely a priest was the only one who could help him?
Would he plead for Rathbone to find some way, any way at all, to save him from the rope? That would be embarrassing, even repulsive, and Rathbone would wish for any form of escape from that. He might even feel nauseated. His throat was tight and his stomach was churning already.
The hansom ride was all too brief. The prison gates opened and clanged shut behind him. He made all the usual civil remarks, and followed the prison guard down the narrow corridors to Ballinger’s cell. Did the place smell of human fear and despair, or was it his imagination?
The huge iron key turned in the lock. The door opened with a faint squeak of hinges, and Rathbone was facing Arthur Ballinger. The floor was black, draining the light from the room. The whitewashed walls made everything ghostly, giving back a dead reflection of the air and the glimpse of sky outside.
Behind him the door was shut and