Funeral in Blue - Anne Perry [41]
In spite of herself, Hester found her eyes suddenly filled with tears. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
He shrugged and shook his head a little.
“Was that why you allowed him to host the funeral meal also?” she asked.
He looked away again. “In part. They are a Liverpool family, not London. He has only been here a year or so, but he has many friends here, people I don’t know, and he wished them to be invited. As you saw, a great number came.”
Without thinking, she gazed around the room. Even in the meager light of the one lamp, she could see it was shabby. The fabric on the arms of the chairs was worn where hands and elbows rested. There was a track of faded color across the carpet from the door to each of the chairs. This was a room as one might furnish for the servants to sit in during the brief times free from their duties.
She looked again at Kristian, and saw with a rush of horror that his eyes were hot with shame. Why had he brought her to this room? Surely any other room would be better? Was it nothing to do with desiring her to leave? Was it conceivable . . . She stared at him, and a flood of understanding opened up between them. “The rest of the house?” she said in almost a whisper.
He looked down at the floor. “This is the best,” he answered. “Apart from the hall and Elissa’s bedroom. The rest is empty.”
She was stunned, ashamed for herself and for him because she had exposed something immeasurably private. At the same time it was incomprehensible. Kristian worked harder than any other man she knew. Even Monk did not work consistently as long. A great deal of it was done without payment, she knew that from Callandra, who was very familiar with the hospital’s finances, but his ordinary hours were rewarded like any other doctor’s.
It flickered through her mind that he could even have given certain things away, but that would have been a noble thing to do. He would have looked her in the face and said it with pride, not down at the floor in silent misery.
“What happened?” She said the words hoarsely, conscious of a terrible intrusion. Had Elissa not been murdered, she would never have deepened such a pain by seeking explanation, but like probing for a bullet in torn flesh, it might be the only way towards healing.
“Elissa gambled,” he said simply. “It was only a little to begin with, but lately it became so she couldn’t help it.”
“Ggambled?” She felt as if she had been struck. Her mind staggered, trying to retain balance. “Gambled?” she repeated pointlessly.
“It became a compulsion.” His voice was flat, without expression. “At first it was just a little excitement, then, when she won, it took hold of her. Then it went on, even when she began to lose. You think the next time you will make it up again. Reason doesn’t have any part in it. In the end, all you think about is the next chance to test your luck, to feel the excitement in the mind, the blood beating as you wait for the card, or the dice, or whatever it is.”
She looked around the room, her throat tightening in misery for the emptiness of it. “But it can cost you everything,” she said, her voice choking in spite of herself. Anger boiled inside her at the futility of it. She turned to face him. “And you can’t ever win unless somebody else loses.”
This time his eyes did not waver. He was not evading the truth anymore, and there was a mark of defiance in him.