Death of a Stranger - Anne Perry [51]
Rathbone glanced at Margaret, saw the anger in her, and something in him softened even further.
“Go on,” he said, turning back to Hester.
“I daresay you are aware that a Mr. Nolan Baltimore was murdered in Leather Lane just over a week ago?” she asked.
He nodded. “I am.”
“Since then the police have patrolled the area with more men than usual, with the result that there is far less trade possible for such women. They are earning little or no money, and cannot pay the usurer. They are being beaten for their delinquency in their debts.” Memory of the two women momentarily obliterated any sense of her own loneliness. She leaned forward earnestly. “Please, Oliver, there must be something we can do to stop it. They are far too terrified and ashamed to fight back for themselves.” She watched him struggle for something to say to let her down gently. She was asking too much. She would have liked to withdraw, be reasonable, but the reality of their pain burned too hotly inside her.
“Hester . . .” he began.
“I know the whole world of Coldbath Square and Leather Lane are outside the law,” she said quickly, before he could dismiss her. “It shouldn’t be! Do we always have to wait until people come to us before we can help them? Sometimes we have to see the problem and address it anyway.” She was aware of Margaret’s slight stiffening. Perhaps she was unaccustomed to such frankness from a woman to a man. It was unbecoming, not the way either to win or to keep a husband.
“You mean decide for them?” Rathbone said with a wry smile. “That doesn’t sound like you, Hester.”
“I’m a nurse, not a lawyer!” she said sharply. “Quite often I have to help people when they are beyond knowing anything for themselves. It is my skill to know what they need, and do it.”
This time his smile was full of warmth, a genuine sweetness in it. “I know that. It is a kind of moral courage I have admired in you from the day we met. I find it a little overwhelming, because I don’t possess it myself.”
She found tears prickling her eyes for an instant. She knew he meant it, and it was more precious to her than she had expected. But she still wished to argue. That was no help to women like Alice and Fanny. “Oliver . . .”
Margaret leaned forward. “Sir Oliver,” she said urgently, her cheeks flushed but her eyes steady, “if you had seen that poor woman’s body with its broken arms and legs, if you could see her pain, her fear, and the shame she feels because she has taken to the streets to pay her husband’s debts, you would feel as we do, that to nurse her through the daily distress of at least partial recovery, only to set her out into Coldbath for it to happen again, because her debt is ever falling behind . . .”
“Miss Ballinger . . .”
“Then—” She stopped abruptly, the color deepening in her face as she became conscious of how forward she was being. “I am sorry,” she said contritely. “It is not your sort of case. And it is not as if we had any money to pay you.” She rose to her feet, her eyes downcast with embarrassment. “It was an act of desperation. . . .”
“Miss Ballinger!” He rose also, stepping around the desk towards her. “Please,” he said gently. “I do not mean that I am unwilling, simply that I do not know what I can do! But I promise you that I will put my attention to it, and if there is anything that may be done within and through the law, I will tell you, and take your instructions. Money need not be a consideration. I hesitate only because I do not wish to promise what it is outside my power to give.”
Margaret looked