Cain His Brother - Anne Perry [166]
She looked down again, ignoring her tea, her eyes brimming with tears.
“If you had known Angus, you would understand. There was a goodness in him, an honor unlike anyone else I have known. The only other man as gentle, and with anything like the same inward love of what is good, is Mr. Niven. I think that is why they were friends, and why I feel I can turn to him now. Angus would have understood that.”
There was nothing further to pursue, except facts, and Hester was not even sure what use they would be. Nevertheless she asked Genevieve precisely in which street she had grown up, where and when she had first met Caleb, how she had met Angus, and all she could remember of that early relationship.
“I barely knew Caleb!” she said bitterly. “I swear to you that is the truth. He was a violent man, even for Limehouse. He frightened me. I think he frightened everyone. He was so like Angus in build and feature, and yet so unlike him in nature that no one could mistake one for the other. The way he walked, the way he stood, his voice, everything was wild and … I don’t know how to describe it.” She frowned, struggling with recollection. “As if he were always angry, as if there were something inside him so full of rage it was held in only by the frailest thread, and any provocation at all and it would explode and be free to hurt and destroy whatever stood in its path.”
Hester did not interrupt her, but quietly sipped her tea and watched Genevieve’s face.
“I suppose he must have had a gentler side,” Genevieve went on, her voice lower. “That poor creature Selina seemed to have cared for him.” She bit her lip. “I don’t know why I speak of her like that. I started in the same place, just three streets away. I could easily have been there now, if I had never met Angus, and he had not had the patience and the love to teach me how to better myself, to speak well enough to pass as respectable, if not as a lady.”
She smiled ruefully, and began her tea at last. “He taught me how to carry myself, how to dress, how to conduct myself with others. I would never have passed for gentry, and have entertained in my own home, but over the years I have learned more confidence, and I don’t believe I ever embarrassed him in front of his colleagues. You see, he was the opposite of Caleb, he had endless patience. I cannot remember him ever losing his temper. He would have considered it wrong, that he was betraying the best in himself.”
“I wish I had known him,” Hester said sincerely. He might have been a trifle pompous, perhaps he lacked humor or imagination, but he must have been a man of immense kindness and an inner integrity which was both rare and beautiful. “Thank you for telling me so much.” She rose to take her leave. “I am sorry to have had to ask you. It must have given you pain.”
“And pleasure.” Genevieve rose also. “I like to talk about him. It is very sad when people cease to mention someone when he is dead. It is almost like denying he ever lived. I am glad you wanted to know.”
Monk already knew from Genevieve where Angus had grown up, and even before Ebenezer Goode had left his home, Monk was in a hansom bound for the railway station and the first train to the Berkshire village of Chilverley. It was a tedious journey, necessitating a number of changes and delays, moving from cozy waiting room with fire, to icy, wind-raked platforms, then chilly trains. It was quarter to eleven when he finally stepped off at Chilverley in a bright, hard wind.
“Chilverley Hall?” the stationmaster said obligingly. “Yes sir. About three miles north from here. That way.” He pointed half behind him. “Know Colonel Patterson, do you? You look like a military man, if I may say so.”
Monk was astonished. Had it not been so