Monk did not see Lady Callandra Daviot, rather to his disappointment. He would have liked her candor on the subject, although he was not sure she would have expressed herself as freely in front of the grieving family as she had in the garden in the rain.
He thanked them and excused himself in time to find Evan and walk down to the village for a pint of cider before the train back to London.
"Well?" Monk asked as soon as they were out of sight of the house.
"Ah." Evan could scarcely suppress his enthusiasm; his stride was surprisingly long, his lean body taut with energy, and he splashed through puddles on the road with complete disregard for his soaking boots. "It's fascinating. I've never been inside a really big house before, I mean inside to know it. My father was a clergyman, you know, and I went along to the manor house sometimes when I was a child-but it was nothing like this. Good Lord, those servants see things that would paralyze me with shame-I mean the family treat them as if they were deaf and blind."
"They don't think of them as people," Monk replied. "At least not people in the same sense as themselves. They are two different worlds, and they don't impinge, except physically. Therefore their opinions don't matter. Did you learn anything else?" He smiled slightly at Evan's innocence.
Evan grinned. "I'll say, although of course they wouldn't intentionally tell a policeman, or anyone else, anything they thought confidential about the family. It would be more than their livelihood was worth. Very closemouthed, they thought they were."
"So how did you learn?" Monk asked curiously, looking at Evan's innocent, imaginative features.
Evan blushed very slightly. "Threw myself on Cook's mercy." He looked down at the ground, but did not decrease his pace in the slightest. "Slandered my landlady appallingly, I'm afraid. Spoke very unkindly about her cooking-oh, and I stood outside for some time before going in, so my hands were cold-" He glanced up at Monk, then away again. "Very motherly sort, Lady Shel-burne's cook." He smiled rather smugly. "Daresay I did a lot better than you did."
"I didn't eat at all," Monk said tartly.
"I'm sorry." Evan did not sound it.
"And what did your dramatic debut earn you, apart from luncheon?" Monk asked. "I presume you overheard a good deal-while you were busy being pathetic and eating them out of house and home?"
"Oh yes-did you know that Rosamond comes from a well-to-do family, but a bit come-lately? And she fell for Joscelin first, but her mother insisted she marry the eldest brother, who also offered for her. And she was a good, obedient girl and did as she was told. At least that is what I read between the lines of what the tweeny was saying to the laundry maid-before the parlor maid came in and stopped them gossiping and they were packed off to their duties."
Monk whistled through his teeth.
"And," Evan went on before he could speak, "they had no children for the first few years, then one son, heir to the title, about a year and a half ago. Someone particularly spiteful is said to have observed that he has the typical Shelburne looks, but more like Joscelin than Lovel-so the second footman heard said in the public house. Blue eyes-you see, Lord Shelburne is dark-so is she-at least her eyes are-"
Monk stopped in the road, staring at him.
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure that's what they say, and Lord Shelburne must have heard it-at last-" He looked appalled. "Oh God! That's what Runcorn meant, isn't it? Very nasty, very nasty indeed." He was comical in his dismay, suddenly the enthusiasm gone out of him. "What on earth are we going to do? I can imagine how Lady Fabia will react if you try opening that one up!"
"So can I," Monk said grimly. "And I don't know what we are going to do."
6
Hester Latterly stood in the small withdrawing room of her brother's house in Thanet Street, a little off the Marylebone Road, and stared out of the window at the carriages passing. It was a smaller house, far less attractive than the family home on Regent Square. But after her father's death that house had had to be sold. She had always imagined that Charles and Imogen would move out of this house and back to Regent Square in such an event, but apparently the funds were needed to settle affairs, and there was nothing above that for any inheritance for any of them. Hence she was now residing with Charles and Imogen, and would be obliged to do so until she should make some arrangements of her own. What they might be now occupied her thoughts.
Her choice was narrow. Disposal of her parents' possessions had been completed, all the necessary letters written and servants given excellent references. Most had fortunately found new positions. It remained for Hester herself to make a decision. Of course Charles had said she was more than welcome to remain as long as she wished- indefinitely, if she chose. The thought was appalling. A permanent guest, neither use nor ornament, intruding on what should be a private house for husband and wife, and in time their children. Aunts were all very well, but not for breakfast, luncheon and dinner every day of the week.
Life had to offer more than that.
Naturally Charles had spoken of marriage, but to be frank, as the situation surely warranted, Hester was very few people's idea of a good match. She was pleasing enough in feature, if a little tall-she looked over the heads of rather too many men for her own comfort, or theirs. But she had no dowry and no expectations at all. Her family was well-bred, but of no connection to any of the great houses; in fact genteel enough to have aspirations, and to have taught its daughters no useful arts, but not privileged enough for birth alone to be sufficient attraction.
All of which might have been overcome if her personality were as charming as Imogen's-but it was not. Where Imogen was gentle, gracious, full of tact and discretion, Hester was abrasive, contemptuous of hypocrisy and impatient of dithering or incompetence and disinclined to suffer foolishness with any grace at all. She was also fonder of reading and study than was attractive in a woman, and not free of the intellectual arrogance of one to whom thought comes easily.
It was not entirely her fault, which mitigated blame but did not improve her chances of gaining or keeping an admirer. She had been among the first to leave England and sail, in appalling conditions, to the Crimea and offer her help to Florence Nightingale in the troop hospital in Scutari.
She could remember quite clearly her first sight of the city, which she had expected to be ravaged by war, and how her breath had caught in her throat with delight at the vividness of the white walls and the copper domes green against the blue sky.
Of course afterwards it had been totally different. She had witnessed such wretchedness and waste there, exacerbated by incompetence that beggared the imagination, and her courage had sustained her, her selflessness never looked for reward, her patience for the truly afflicted never flagged. And at the same time the sight of such terrible suffering had made her rougher to lesser pain than was just. Each person's pain is severe to him at the time, and the thought that there might be vastly worse occurs to very few. Hester did not stop to consider this, except when it was forced upon her, and such was most people's abhorrence of candor on unpleasant subjects that very few did.
She was highly intelligent, with a gift for logical thought which many people found disturbing-especially men, who did not expect it or like it in a woman. That gift had enabled her to be invaluable in the administration of hospitals for the critically injured or desperately ill-but there was no place for it in the domestic homes of gentlemen in England. She could have run an entire castle and marshaled the forces to defend it, and had time to spare. Unfortunately no one desired a castle run-and no one attacked them anymore.
And she was approaching thirty.