The William Monk Mysteries_ The First Three Novels - Anne Perry [415]
“Well, yes, I suppose so—for a lady, that is,” she conceded, watching his face.
“But not what you would like?” he asked.
“Me? Well—well sir, I think as I’d want someone who—maybe this sounds silly, you bein’ a gentleman an’ all—but I’d want someone as I could ’ave fun with—talk to, like. A man who’d …” She colored fiercely now. “Who’d give me a bit of affection—if you see what I mean, sir.”
“Yes, I see what you mean.” Monk smiled at her without knowing quite why. Some old memory of warmth came back to him, the kitchen in his mother’s house in Northumberland, her standing there at the table with her sleeves rolled up, and cuffing him gently around the ear for being cheeky, but it was more a caress than a discipline. She had been proud of him. He knew that beyond doubt in that moment. He had written regularly from London, letting her know how he was doing, of his career and what he hoped to achieve. And she had written back, short, oddly spelled letters in a round hand, but full of pride. He had sent money when he could, which was quite often. It pleased him to help her, after all the lean, sacrificing years, and it was a mark of his success.
Then after Walbrook’s ruin, there had been no more money. And in embarrassment he had ceased to write. What utter stupidity! As if that would have mattered to her. What a pride he had. What an ugly, selfish pride.
“Of course I know what you mean,” he said again to the maid. “Perhaps Mrs. Carlyon felt the same way, do you suppose?”
“Oh I wouldn’t know, sir. Ladies is different. They don’t—well …”
“They didn’t share a room?”
“Oh no, sir—not since I been here. And I ’eard from Lucy, as I took over from, not before that neither. But then gentry don’t, do they? They got bigger ’ouses than the likes of my ma and pa.”
“Or mine,” Monk agreed. “Was she happy?”
Ginny frowned, looking at him guardedly. “No sir, I don’t think as she were.”
“Did she change lately in any way?”
“She’s been awful worried over something lately. An’ she and the general ’ad a terrible row six months ago—but there’s no use askin’ me what about, because I don’t know. She shut the doors and sent me away. I just know because o’ the way she was all white-faced and spoke to no one, and the way she looked like she seen death face-to-face. But that was six months ago, an’ I thought it was all settled again.”
“Did he ever hurt her physically, Ginny?”
“Great ’eaven’s, no!” She shook her head, looking at him with deep distress. “I can’t ’elp you, sir, nor ’er. I really don’t know of anything at all as why she should ’ave killed ’im. He were cold, and terrible tedious, but ’e were generous with ’is money, faithful to ’er, well-spoken, didn’t drink too much nor gamble nor keep fast company. And although ’e were terrible ’ard to Miss Sabella over that going into a nunnery business, he were the best father to young master Cassian as a boy could ask. And terrible fond of ’im Master Cassian were, poor little thing. If it weren’t that I know as she wasn’t a wicked woman, I’d think—well, I’d think as she were.”
“Yes,” Monk said miserably. “Yes—I am afraid I would too. Thank you for your time, Ginny. I’ll take myself downstairs.”
It was not until Monk had fruitlessly interviewed the rest of the staff, who bore out what Hagger and Ginny had said, partaken of luncheon in the servants’ hall, and was outside in the street that he realized just how much of his own life had come back to him unbidden: his training in commerce, his letters home, Walbrook’s ruin and his own consequent change of fortune—but not the face of the woman who so haunted him, who she was, or why he cared so intensely … or what had happened to her.
6
WITH MAJOR TIPLADY’S ENTHUSIASTIC PERMISSION, Hester accepted an invitation to dine with Oliver Rathbone in the very proper circumstances of taking a hansom to the home in Primrose Hill of Rathbone’s father, who proved to be an elderly gentleman of charm and distinction.
Hester, determined not to be late, actually arrived before Rathbone himself, who had been held up by a jury taking