The William Monk Mysteries_ The First Three Novels - Anne Perry [56]
They walked in silence, each enjoying it in his own way. Monk was not aware of any particular thoughts, except perhaps a sense of pleasure in the sheer distance of the sky, the width across the fields. Suddenly memory flooded back vividly, and he saw Northumberland again: broad, bleak hills, north wind shivering in the grass. The milky sky was mackerel shredded out to sea, and white gulls floated on the currents, screaming.
He could remember his mother, dark like Beth, standing in the kitchen, and the smell of yeast and flour. She had been proud of him, proud that he could read and write. He must have been very young then. He remembered a room with sun in it, the vicar’s wife teaching him letters, Beth in a smock staring at him in awe. She could not read. He could almost feel himself teaching her, years after, slowly, outline by outline. Her writing still carried echoes of those hours, careful, conscious of the skill and its long learning. She had loved him so much, admired him without question. Then the memory disappeared and it was as if someone had drenched him in cold water, leaving him startled and shivering. It was the most acute and powerful memory he had recaptured and its sharpness left him stunned. He did not notice Evan’s eyes on him, or the quick glance away as he strove to avoid what he realized would be intrusion.
Shelburne Hall was in sight across the smooth earth, less than a thousand yards away, framed in trees.
“Do you want me to say anything, or just listen?” Evan asked. “It might be better if I listened.”
Monk realized with a start that Evan was nervous. Perhaps he had never spoken to a woman of title before, much less questioned her on personal and painful matters. He might not even have seen such a place, except from the distance. He wondered where his own assurance came from, and why he had not ever thought of it before. Runcorn was right, he was ambitious, even arrogant—and insensitive.
“Perhaps if you try the servants,” he replied. “Servants notice a lot of things. Sometimes they see a side of their masters that their lordships manage to hide from their equals.”
“I’ll try the valet,” Evan suggested. “I should imagine you are peculiarly vulnerable in the bath, or in your underwear.” He grinned suddenly at the thought, and perhaps in some amusement at the physical helplessness of his social superiors to need assistance in such common matters. It offset his own fear of proving inadequate to the situation.
Lady Fabia Shelburne was somewhat surprised to see Monk again, and kept him waiting nearly half an hour, this time in the butler’s pantry with the silver polish, a locked desk for the wine book and the cellar keys, and a comfortable armchair by a small grate. Apparently the housekeeper’s sitting room was already in use. He was annoyed at the casual insolence of it, and yet part of him was obliged to admire her self-control. She had no idea why he had come. He might even have been able to tell her who had murdered her son, and why.
When he was sent for and conducted to the rosewood sitting room, which seemed to be peculiarly hers, she was cool and gracious, as if he had only just arrived and she had no more than a courteous interest in what he might say.
At her invitation he sat down opposite her on the same deep rose-pink chair as before.
“Well, Mr. Monk?” she inquired with slightly raised eyebrows. “Is there something further you want to say to me?”
“Yes ma’am, if you please. We are even more of the opinion that whoever killed Major Grey did so for some personal reason, and that he was not a chance victim. Therefore we need to know everything further we can about him, his social connections—”
Her eyes widened. “If you imagine his social connections are of a type to indulge in murder, Mr. Monk, then you are extraordinarily ignorant of society.”
“I am afraid, ma’am, that most people are capable of murder, if they are hard-pressed enough, and threatened in what they most value—”
“I think