The William Monk Mysteries_ The First Three Novels - Anne Perry [417]
“Are you acquainted with the case, Mr. Rathbone?” Hester turned to Henry enquiringly, not wishing him to be excluded from the conversation.
“Oliver has mentioned it,” he replied, helping himself liberally to a dark chutney. “What is it you hope to find?”
“The true reason why she killed him. Unfortunately it is beyond question that she did.”
“What reason has she given you?”
“Jealousy of her hostess of that evening, but we know that is not true. She said she believed her husband was having an affair with this woman, Louisa Furnival, but we know that he was not, and that she knew that.”
“But she will not tell you the truth?”
“No.”
He frowned, cutting off a piece of meat and spreading it liberally with the chutney and mashed potato.
“Let us be logical about it,” he said thoughtfully. “Did she plan this murder before she committed it?”
“We don’t know. There is nothing to indicate whether she did or not.”
“So it might have been a spur-of-the-moment act—lacking forethought, and possibly not considering the consequences either.”
“But she is not a foolish woman,” Hester protested. “She cannot have failed to know she would be hanged.”
“If she was caught!” he argued. “It is possible an overwhelming fury possessed her and she acted unreasonably.”
Hester frowned.
“My dear, it is a mistake to imagine we are all reasonable all of the time,” he said gently. “People act from all sorts of impulses, sometimes quite contrary to their own interests, had they stopped to think. But so often we don’t, we do what our emotions drive us to. If we are frightened we either run or freeze motionless, or we lash out, according to our nature and past experience.”
He ignored his food, looking at her with concentration. “I think most tragedies happen when people have had too little time to think or weigh one course against another, or perhaps even to assess the real situation. They leap in before they have seen or understood. And then it is too late.” Absentmindedly he pushed the pickle toward Oliver. “We are full of preconceptions; we judge from our own viewpoint. We believe what we have to, to keep the whole edifice of our views of things to be as they are. A new idea is still the most dangerous thing in the world. A new idea about something close to ourselves, coming quite suddenly and without warning, can make us so disconcerted, so frightened at the idea of all our beliefs about ourselves and those around us crumbling about our ears that we reach to strike at the one who has introduced this explosion into our lives—to deny it, violently if need be.”
“Perhaps we don’t know nearly enough about Alexandra Carlyon,” she said thoughtfully, staring at her plate.
“We know a great deal more now than we did a week ago,” Oliver said quietly. “Monk has been to her house and spoken with her servants, but the picture that emerges of both her and the general does nothing to set her in a better light, or explain why she should kill him. He was chilly, and possibly a bore, but he was faithful to her, generous with his money, had an excellent reputation, indeed almost perfect—and he was a devoted father to his son, and not unreasonable to his daughters.”
“He refused to allow Sabella to devote herself to the Church,” Hester said hotly. “And forced her to marry Fenton Pole.”
Oliver smiled. “Not unreasonable, really. I think most fathers might well do the same. And Pole seems a decent enough man.”
“He still ordered her against her will,” she protested.
“That is a father’s prerogative, especially where daughters are concerned.”
She drew in her breath sharply, longing to remonstrate, even to accuse him of injustice, but she did not want to appear abrasive and ungracious to Henry Rathbone. It was an inappropriate time to pursue her own causes, however justifiable. She liked him more than she had expected, and his ill opinion of her would hurt. He was utterly unlike her own father, who had been very conventional, not greatly given to discussion; and yet in his company she was reminded, with comfort and a stab of pain,