"Better," she replied, meeting his eyes. “I think the pain is about the same. It will be for a while. But he is sleeping with fewer nightmares now."
"Perdita?" he guessed.
She smiled. "Yes. Slowly…"
He smiled also, remembering Athol Sheldon and the look on his face when Perdita had spoken to him the last time Monk had been there. It was a battle she would not win easily, but at least she was prepared to fight it.
Hester led the way from the withdrawing room across the hall and upstairs to Gabriel's room. She knocked on the door.
It was opened by Perdita. She was dressed in soft pink trimmed with wine and she looked very serious and demure in spite of the flattering color. She stared past Hester to Monk.
"Is it more about Martha's nieces?" she asked very quietly, in case Martha should be close and overhear her.
"No, Mrs. Sheldon, it is about the inquest on Keelin Melville."
"Oh." She hesitated only a moment. The old habit of trying to protect Gabriel did not die easily. She had to make a conscious effort to realize what she was doing. She opened the door wider and they followed her in.
Gabriel was sitting up on the bed, but he was fully dressed. It was only the second time Monk had seen him other than under the covers. He realized with a sense of shock how thin Gabriel was. Quite apart from the empty sleeve of his shirt, neatly tucked up and fastened, in the warm room with the sunlight streaming in, the thin cotton fabric showed how his body had wasted even on the other side. Heat, hunger and pain had taken a fearful toll on him. It would be half a year at least before he regained the health he had had before Cawnpore. Monk became acutely curious of his own body with its lean muscles and ease of movement, his energy, the power he did not even have to think of. So much was a matter of fortune. He could have been in the army instead of the police. He might have been in India. He could have been in Gabriel Sheldon's place, and Gabriel in his. Except he would not have had Perdita to care for him and to be responsible for. But he could have! She was just the sort of gentle, charming woman he had fallen in love with so many times.
Gabriel was looking at him, waiting for him to speak.
"Keelin Melville?" he said at last, when Monk was still silent.
"Yes," Monk replied, coming in. "They held the inquest this morning."
Gabriel's face was unreadable. It flew to Monk's mind that Gabriel must have thought of suicide himself in the early days of his maiming and disfigurement. How often had he lain on his back in agonizing pain and helplessness and wished he were dead? Melville could at least have escaped most of her difficulties. She could have left England and started again in a dozen different places. She was young, healthy; she had sufficient means to travel and no unbreakable ties. Wolff could have gone with her, had he wished to. She was whole of body and had her health and very considerable good looks. In Italy or France she could even have lived openly as a woman and married Wolff. Perhaps she would have had to practice her profession through him, give him credit for her creation or her technical skill… but was that not still infinitely better than dying?
Why had she given up?
"What is it?" Gabriel asked, watching him.
How honest should he be? There was a difference between the candor of respect and the tactlessness of acting without thought or compassion.
"Suicide," Monk replied. "They brought in a verdict of suicide, although they couldn't decide what actually turned the balance between misery and despair or, for that matter, how or precisely when she took the poison."
Perdita gave a little sigh.
"I'm sorry," Gabriel said quietly. "She must have found it beyond bearing." He looked for a moment as if he was going to say something more, then changed his mind.
"Do you understand it?" Monk asked, then could have bitten his tongue. It was exactly what he had determined not to do. He was aware of Hester just behind him near the door.
Gabriel smiled, lighting the good side of his face and twisting the scarred flesh of the other.
"No. But if there is anything I've learned in all this, it is that we don't understand what makes the breaking point, or what we find we can endure beyond anything we thought we could-for ourselves or for anyone else." He was speaking quietly, the look in his eyes far away. "The damnedest people endure things that seem impossible, and sometimes do it without even complaining. I've seen men I used to think were ordinary, not very special in any way, a bit crude." He smiled ruefully. "A bit stupid even, put up with terrifying injury without crying out. Or walk for miles with their feet ripped raw and squelching blood, and make silly jokes about it." Hester and Perdita had been close together, motionless up to this point. Now Perdita came forward and sat by the bed near Gabriel, sliding her hand over his.
Gabriel tightened his fingers to grasp hers, then went on. "I've seen men I thought were callous and insensitive stay by a dying man they scarcely knew, and sit up all night telling him stories about anything and everything so he wasn't alone, and then when they were so tired they could hardly see straight, get up and dig a hole deep enough to bury him. I' ve heard illiterate men say prayers that would wrench your heart, and the next minute use language you wouldn't let your father hear, let alone your mother." He laughed, but it was a jerky sound, charged with emotion. "And I've seen men I thought had all the courage in the world lie down and die of a wound that wouldn't have slowed up someone else. I don't know why Melville killed herself. You don't either?"
"No, No, I don't. It…" Monk sighed and sat down on the chair at the foot of the bed. "It leaves a feeling of being unfinished, as if there were something else I should know, but I can't think what it is."
"Don't torture yourself," Gabriel said gently. "You may never know. There are lots of things about other people we'll never understand. It doesn't matter. You don't have any particular right to know-or need, except for your own curiosity."
Perdita turned to Monk.
"Thank you for coming," Perdita said with a tiny smile. "I would far rather you told us than we heard it from Athol." She flinched minutely as she spoke his name, more of remembered pain than dislike. She had known him too long not to understand at least part of the prejudices which drove him. "What will happen to Mr. Wolff?" she asked very quietly. "They can't hurt him, can they?"
Gabriel was watching Monk as well, a shadow of concern in his eyes. Odd how beautiful and clear they were above his disfigured face. Monk found himself no longer surprised or horrified by it. Of course, he had never known him before, and that must make a shattering difference. If he had loved a beautiful woman, how would he feel if she were scarred like that? Would he still be in love with her, or only care as a friend?
Hester was not beautiful… except for her eyes, and her mouth when she was thinking, and when she smiled, and her hands. She had the loveliest hands he had ever seen, not soft and white as fashion admired, but slender, delicate and very strong, perfectly balanced.
Perdita was waiting.
"No…" he said abruptly. "No, it's not a crime to allow someone to masquerade as a man while being a woman. Unless it is for the purpose of fraud, of course."
"But this wasn't!" Perdita said quickly. "She was selling her designs to Mr. Lambert, and it shouldn't matter whether she was a man or a woman for that!"
"Mr. Lambert won't take the matter any further," Monk said with a smile. "Unless he can blame someone for her death- then he will."
Gabriel was surprised. "Can he?"
Monk shrugged. "I doubt it. I thought for a little while it might somehow be murder, but that doesn't make sense, either for motive or opportunity."