Acceptable Loss Read online

  Squeaky was in the entrance as she came in, his face gaunt, his stringy gray-white hair down to his collar as usual. He was wearing an ancient frock coat and today had on a faded silk cravat.

  “We need more money,” he said as soon as Hester was through the door. “I dunno how you expect me to do all these things on sixpence ha’penny!”

  “You had fifty pounds just a week ago,” she replied. She was so used to Squeaky’s complaints that she would have worried if he had said that all was well.

  “Mrs. Margaret says we’re going to need new pans in the kitchen soon,” he retaliated. “Lots of ’em. Big ones. Sometimes I think we’re feeding half London.”

  “Lady Rathbone,” Hester corrected him automatically. “And pans do wear out, Squeaky. They get to the point where they can’t be mended anymore.”

  “Then, you tell her ladyship to come up with some money for ’em,” he said waspishly.

  “What happened to the fifty pounds?”

  “Sheets and medicines,” he replied instantly. “You can tell her now. She’s through there.” He jerked his head sideways, indicating the door to his left.

  There was no point in putting it off. Not only would it look like cowardice, it would feel like it. As if obedient to his instruction, she went through into the next room.

  Margaret Rathbone was standing near the central table with a pale blue notepad in her hand, and a pencil poised. She looked up as Hester came in. There was a moment’s total silence between them, as if neither had expected to see the other, and yet both of them must have been preparing for this inevitable meeting. It was the first since Lord Justice Sullivan’s suicide, and the accusations he had then made against Margaret’s father—that he was the force behind the pornography—and the blackmail that had finally ruined the judge. There was no proof, just unforgettable words, and drowned bodies. Margaret would never admit the possibility, but Hester could not deny it. It left them no bridge to each other.

  Margaret was not a beautiful woman, but her features were regular and her bearing unusually graceful. She had a dignity without arrogance—an unusual gift. Now she put the notepad down and looked unblinkingly at Hester. Her expression was guarded, as yet without warmth.

  “I have the new sheets,” she remarked. “Two dozen of them. They will more than make up for those we have to get rid of.”

  “The old ones will be good to tear up for bandages,” Hester replied, walking farther into the room. “Thank you.”

  Margaret looked a little surprised, as if thanking her were inappropriate. “It was not my money,” she observed.

  “We would not have it if you had not persuaded someone to donate it,” Hester pointed out. She made herself smile. “But as always, Squeaky is now complaining that the old pans cannot be mended anymore and we need new ones.”

  “Do we?”

  Hester relaxed a little. “We will do. All I said was that we should start saving for them. I swear he wouldn’t be happy if he didn’t have something to be miserable about.”

  There was a polite tap on the door. Hester answered it, and Claudine Burroughs came in. She was a broad-hipped middle-aged woman with a face that had once been handsome, but time and unhappiness had taken away her bloom. She had discovered both her independence of spirit and a considerable purpose in life when she had volunteered to help in the clinic, mostly to irritate her unimaginative husband. She had defied his orders to cease her association with such a place, with more courage than she had known she possessed.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Monk,” she said cheerfully. “Morning, Lady Rathbone.” Without waiting for a reply she launched into an account of the new patients who had been admitted since yesterday evening, and the progress of the more serious cases that had been there for some time. There were the usual fevers, stab wounds, a dislocated shoulder, sores, and infestations. The only thing less ordinary was an abscess, which Claudine reported triumphantly she had lanced, and which was now clean and should heal.

  Margaret winced at the thought of the pain, not to mention the mess.

  Hester applauded Claudine’s medical confidence. They moved on to other housekeeping matters. Then they went to see the more serious cases, speaking only of business, and the morning passed quickly.

  When Hester came downstairs to the entrance hall again, she found Oliver Rathbone waiting. She was startled to see him, off guard because she had been trying not to imagine what Monk would have said to him about Ballinger. Now a glance at Rathbone’s face—sensitive, intelligent, faintly quizzical—and she knew that Monk had not spoken to him yet. She felt guilty, as if in knowing what was to come and not saying it, she were somehow deceiving him.

  “Good morning, Oliver,” she said with a slight smile. “If you are looking for Margaret, she is in the medicine room.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Are you in a hurry?”

  She could have kicked herself for dismissing him so quickly. She had not only been discourteous, she had made her unease obvious. Would apologizing make it worse?

  “Are you all right, Hester?” he asked, taking a step toward her. “What about Scuff? How is he?”

  Rathbone had been with them when they had searched so frantically for Scuff. He knew exactly how she’d felt. The horror of that day had touched him as nothing else had ever done in his life of prosecuting or defending some of the worst crimes in London. She saw the memory of it in his eyes now, and the gentleness. Stupidly the tears prickled in her own, and her throat was tight with the fear of what might come for him, if Sullivan had been telling the truth. She turned away so he could not read her face.

  “He still has awful nightmares,” she replied a little huskily. “I’m afraid it’s going to take …” She hesitated. “Time.”

  “What will it take for him ever to be over it?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Thinking it’s over for his friends, other boys like him. Not lies.”

  He smiled very slightly. “He’d never believe you anyway, Hester. You’re a terrible liar. Totally transparent.”

  She met his eyes with a flash of wit. “Or else I’m so good that you’ve never caught me?”

  For an instant his face was blank with surprise, and then he laughed.

  At that moment Margaret came in. Hester turned toward her and was struck with a sudden, quite unnecessary stab of guilt. She was relieved when Rathbone stepped around her, his face lighting with pleasure.

  “Margaret! My big case is over. Have you time to join me for luncheon?”

  “I’d be delighted,” she replied without looking at Hester. “Especially if you can help me think of anyone further whom I can ask for money. We have new sheets, but soon we shall need pots and pans.” She did not add that she was the only one raising funds, but it hung, unspoken, in the air.

  Hester felt ashamed for her own failure to raise money, but Margaret’s marriage to Rathbone gave her a position in society that Hester would never have. That fact was too obvious for either of them to need to say it. It was also unnecessary to add that Margaret’s courtesy and natural good manners yielded far more reward than Hester’s outspoken candor. People liked to feel that they were doing their Christian duty toward the less fortunate, but definitely not that they owed it in any way. And they certainly did not wish to hear the details of poverty or disease.

  “Thank you,” Hester said mildly, although it cost her an effort. “It would certainly be a great help.”

  Margaret smiled and took Rathbone’s arm.

  BY THE MIDDLE OF the afternoon Hester had had little more for luncheon than a cold cheese sandwich and a cup of tea. She was helping one of the women finish the scrubbing when Rupert Cardew arrived. She was on her knees on the floor, a brush in her hand, a pail of soapy water beside her. She heard the footsteps and then saw the polished boots stop about a yard in front of her.

  She sat back and looked up slowly. He was at least as tall as Monk, but fair where Monk was dark, and, on his recent visits to the clinic to add to their fundi
ng, so relaxed as to be casual. Monk, on the other hand, was always intensely alive, waiting to move.

  “Sorry,” Rupert apologized with a smile. “Didn’t mean to catch you on your knees. But if you were praying for more money, then I’m here with the answer.”

  Hester climbed to her feet, declining his outstretched hand to assist her. Her plain blue skirt was wet where she had kneeled; and her white blouse, unadorned with lace, was rolled up above her elbows, and also wet in places. Her hair—not always her best feature—had been pinned back and adjusted several times as it had escaped, and was now completely shapeless.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Cardew.” She could not call him “sir”—and she did not think he wished it—although she was perfectly aware of his father’s title. Should she apologize for looking like a servant? Their friendship was recent, but she had liked him immediately, in spite of being aware that his beneficence toward the clinic sprang at least in part from a professional familiarity with some of its patients. His father, Lord Cardew, had sufficient wealth and position to make work unnecessary for his only surviving son. Rupert wasted his time, means, and talents with both charm and generosity, although lately he had lost some of his usual ease.

  “I wasn’t praying,” she added, looking ruefully at her wet, rather red hands. “Perhaps I should have had more faith. Thank you.” She took the considerable amount of money he held out. She did not count it, but there was clearly several hundred pounds in the bundle of Treasury notes he put in her hand.

  “Debts of pleasure,” he said with a wide smile. “Do you really have to do that yourself?” He eyed the floor and the bucket.

  “Actually, it’s quite satisfying,” she told him. “Especially if you’re in a temper. You can attack it, and then see the difference you have made.”

  “Next time I am in a temper, perhaps I’ll try it,” he promised with a smile. “You were an army nurse, weren’t you?” he observed. “They should have set you at the enemy. You’d have frightened the wits out of them.” He said it good-naturedly, as if in approval. “Would you like a cup of tea? I should have brought some cake.”

  “Bread and jam?” she offered. She could enjoy a few minutes’ break and the light, superficial conversation with him. He reminded her of the young cavalry officers she had known in the Crimea: charming, funny, seemingly careless on the surface, and yet underneath it trying desperately not to think of tomorrow, or yesterday, and the friends they had lost, and would yet lose. However, as far as she knew, Rupert had no war to fight, no battle worth winning or losing.

  “What kind of jam?” he asked, as if it mattered.

  “Black currant,” she replied. “Or possibly raspberry.”

  “Right.” To her surprise he bent and picked up the bucket, carrying it away from himself a little so it did not soil his perfect trousers or splash his boots.

  She was startled. She had never before seen him even acknowledge the necessity, never mind stoop to so lowly a task. She wondered what had made him think of it today. Certainly not any vulnerability in her. It had made no difference before.

  He put the pail down at the scullery door. Emptying it could wait for someone else.

  In the kitchen Hester pushed the kettle over onto the cooktop and started to cut bread. She offered to toast it, and then passed the fork over to him to hold in front of the open door of the stove.

  They spoke easily of the clinic and some of the cases that had come in. Rupert had a quick compassion for the street women’s pain, in spite of being one of those very willing to use their services.

  With tea, toast, and jam on the table, conversation moved to other subjects with which there was no tension, no glaring contrasts: social gossip, places they had visited, exhibitions of art. He was interested in everything, and he listened as graciously as he spoke. Sometimes she forgot the great kitchen around her, the pots and pans, the stove, and in the next room the copper for boiling linen, and the laundry tubs, the scullery sinks, the racks of vegetables. She could have been at home as a young woman, fifteen years ago, before the war, before experience, passion, grief, or real happiness. There had been a kind of innocence to her life then; everything had been possible. Her parents had still been alive, and also her younger brother, who had been killed in the Crimea. The memories were both sweet and painful.

  Deliberately she steered the subject back to the clinic. “We’re very grateful for your gift. I had asked Lady Rathbone to see if she could raise some more money, but it is always difficult. We keep on asking, because there is so much needed all the time, but people do get tired of us.” She smiled a trifle ruefully.

  “Lady Rathbone. Is she the wife of Sir Oliver?” he asked with apparent interest, although it might merely have been the feigning required by good manners.

  “Yes. Do you know them?”

  “Only by repute.” The idea seemed to amuse him. “Our paths don’t cross, except perhaps at the theater, and I dare say he goes for reasons of business, and she, to be seen. I go because I enjoy it.”

  “Isn’t that why you do most things?” she replied, and then wished she had not. It was too perceptive, too sharp.

  He winced, but appeared unoffended. “You are about the only truly virtuous woman that I actually like,” he said, as if surprised at it himself. “You haven’t ever tried to redeem me, thank God.”

  “Good heavens!” She opened her eyes wide. “How remiss of me! Should I have, at least for appearances’ sake?”

  “If you told me you cared about appearances, I should not believe you,” he answered, trying to be serious, and failing. “Although for some, there is nothing else.” He was suddenly tense, muscles pulling in his neck. “Wasn’t it Sir Oliver who defended Jericho Phillips and got him off?”

  Hester felt a moment of chill, simply to be reminded of it. “Yes,” she said with as little expression as she could.

  “Don’t look like that,” he said gently. “The miserable devil got his just deserts in the end. He drowned—slowly—feeling the water creep up his body inch by inch as the tide came in. And he was terrified of drowning, phobic about it. Much worse for him than being hanged, which is supposed to be all over in a matter of seconds, so they say.”

  She stared at him, her mind racing.

  He blushed, his fair skin coloring easily. “I’m sorry. I’m sure that’s more detail than you wanted to know. I shouldn’t have said that. Sometimes I speak too frankly to you. I apologize.”

  It was not the detail that had sent the icy chill creeping through her, for she knew all too well how Jericho Phillips had died. She had seen his dead face. It was the fact that Rupert Cardew knew of Phillips’s terror of water. That meant that he had known Phillips himself. Why should that surprise her? Rupert had made no secret of the fact that he knew prostitutes and was prepared to pay for his pleasure. Perhaps that was more honest than seducing women and then leaving them, possibly with child. But Jericho Phillips had been a different matter—a blackmailer, a pornographer of children, of little boys as young as six or seven years.

  Perhaps Rupert had known Phillips only casually, without realizing that he did? Was that one of the many scrapes from which Rupert’s father had bailed him out? It should not surprise her. How easy it is when you like someone to be blind to the possibilities of ugliness in them, of weaknesses too deep to be passed over with tolerance.

  What horror might be ahead for Margaret, if Sullivan had been telling the truth about Arthur Ballinger, and one day Margaret was forced to realize it? Margaret’s loyalties would be torn apart, the whole fabric of love and belief threatened. Margaret was loyal to her father; of course she was, as Rupert was to his. And perhaps he had even more cause. His father had protected him, right or wrong. The cost to Lord Cardew must have been far more than money, and yet he had never failed.

  Love does forgive, but can it forgive everything? Should it? Which loyalties came first—family, or belief in right and wrong?

  What about her own father? That pain twisted deep
into places she dared not look. Her father had died alone in England, betrayed and ashamed, while she had been out in the Crimea caring for strangers, ignorant to his plight. What loyalty was that?

  “Hester?” Rupert’s voice broke through her thoughts.

  She looked up. She was glad that Rupert was just a friend, someone she was deeply grateful to but not tied to by blood, or love.

  “You’re right,” she agreed. “It sounds as if fate were harsher to Phillips than the law would have been.”

  MONK WENT TO OLIVER Rathbone’s office in the city late in the morning, and was informed courteously by his clerk that Sir Oliver had gone to luncheon. Monk duly returned at half past two, and was still obliged to wait. It might have been simpler to catch Rathbone with time to spare at his home in the evening, but Monk needed to speak with him when Margaret was not present.

  At quarter to three Rathbone came back, entering with a smile on his face and the easy elegant manner he usually had when the taste of victory was still fresh on his tongue.

  “Hello, Monk,” he said with surprise. “Got another case for me already?” He came in and closed the door quietly. His pale gray suit was perfectly cut and fitted to his slender figure. The sunlight shone in through the long windows, catching the smoothness of his fair hair and the touches of gray at the temples.

  “I hope I don’t,” Monk answered. “But I can’t let this go by default.”

  “What are you talking about?” Rathbone sat down and crossed his legs. He appeared reasonably comfortable, even if in fact he was not. “You look as if you have just opened someone’s bedroom door by mistake.”

  “I may have,” Monk said wryly. The reference was meant only as an illustration, but it was too close to the truth.

  Rathbone regarded him levelly, his face serious now. “It’s not like you to be oblique. How bad is it?”