The William Monk Mysteries_ The First Three Novels - Anne Perry [317]
She gave him hers and he grasped it hard.
“My dear Miss Latterly, what a remarkable pleasure to see you again, and in so much more agreeable circumstances. I hope you are well, and that things prosper with you?”
She was quite honest, not for any purpose but because the words were spoken before she thought otherwise.
“I am very well, thank you, and things prosper only moderately. My parents died, and I am obliged to make my way, but I have the means, so I am fortunate. But I admit it is hard to adjust to England again, and to peace, where everyone’s preoccupations are so different—” She left the wealth of implication unsaid: the withdrawing room manners, the stiff skirts, the emphasis on social position and manners. She could see that he read it all in her face, and his own experiences had been sufficiently alike for more explanation to be redundant.
“Oh indeed.” He sighed, letting go of her hand. “Please be seated and tell me what I may do to be of help to you.”
She knew enough not to waste his tune. The preliminaries had already been dealt with.
“What can you tell me of Captain Harry Haslett, who was killed at Balaclava? I ask because his widow has recently met a most tragic death. I am acquainted with her mother; indeed I have been nursing her through her time of bereavement, and am presently nursing her uncle, a retired officer.” If he asked her Septimus’s name she would affect not to know the circumstances of his “retirement.”
Major Tallis’s face clouded over immediately.
“An excellent officer, and one of the nicest men I ever knew. He was a fine commander of men. It came to him naturally because he had courage and a sense of justice that men admired. There was humor in him, and some love of adventure, but not bravado. He never took unnecessary chances.” He smiled with great sadness. “I think more than most men, he wanted to live. He had a great love for his wife—in fact the army was not the career he would have chosen; he entered it only to earn himself the means to support his wife in the manner he wished and to make some peace with his father-in-law, Sir Basil Moidore—who paid for his commission as a wedding gift, I believe, and watched over his career with keen interest. What an ironic tragedy.”
“Ironic?” she said quickly.
His face creased with pain and his voice lowered instinctively, but his words were perfectly clear.
“It was Sir Basil who arranged his promotion, and thus his transfer from the regiment in which he was to Lord Cardigan’s Light Brigade, and of course they led the charge at Balaclava. If he had remained a lieutenant as he was, he would very probably be alive today.”
“What happened?” An awful possibility was opening up in front of her, so ugly she could not bear to look at it, nor yet could she look away. “Do you know of whom Sir Basil asked his favor? A great deal of honor depends upon it,” she pressed with all the gravity she could. “And, I am beginning to think, the truth of Octavia Haslett’s death. Please, Major Tallis, tell me about Captain Haslett’s promotion?”
He hesitated only a moment longer. The debt he owed her, their common memories, and his admiration and grief over Haslett’s death prevailed.
“Sir Basil is a man of great power and influence, perhaps you are not aware quite how much. He has far more wealth than he displays, although that is considerable, but he also had obligations owed him, debts both of assistance and of finance from the past, and I think a great deal of knowledge—” He left the uses of that unspoken. “He would not find it difficult to accomplish the transfer of an officer from one regiment to another in order to achieve his promotion, if he wished it. A letter—sufficient money to purchase the new commission—”
“But how would Sir Basil know whom to approach in the new regiment?” she pressed, the idea taking firmer shape