Anne Perry: The Silent Cry

"How can you possibly know this, Miss Latterly?" Rathbone asked.

"Because Rhys has regained his speech," she answered. "He told me.”

"And did he know the names of his other assailants?”

"Yes… it was Joel Kynaston, his old headmaster, and Corriden Wade, his physician. That was partial reason why he could not even attempt to tell anyone what had happened to him. The other part was his total shame and humiliation.”

Eglantyne's head jerked up, her eyes wide, her skin ashen. She seemed to choke for breath. There was no outward change in Fidelis, as if in her heart she was not surprised.

"Thank you, Miss Latterly." Rathbone turned towards the judge, about to make a plea, and then stopped. The judge's face was engraved with a horror and pity so deep the sight of it shocked.

Rathbone looked at the jurors, and saw the same emotions mirrored in them, except for the four whose disbelief could not grasp such a thing.

Rape happened to women, loose women who invited it. It did not happen to a man… any man! Men were inviolable… at least in the intimacy of their bodies. The horror and incomprehension left them stunned. They sat staring blindly, almost unaware of the room around them, or of the strange, shifting silence in the gallery.

Rathbone looked at Sylvestra Duff. She was so white she looked barely alive. Eglantyne Wade sat with her head bowed forward, her face covered by her hands. Only Fidelis Kynaston moved. She still held Sylvestra, moving very slightly back and forth. She seemed to be saying something to her, bending close to her. Her expression was tender, as if in this last agony she would bear some of it for her, share both their burdens.

"Have you anything further to add, Sir Oliver?" The judge broke the silence.

"No, my lord," Rathbone answered. "If anyone has doubts, I will have further medical evidence obtained, but I would very much rather not subject Mr. Duff to any more pain or distress than he has already suffered. He has sworn a statement as to what happened in Water Lane the night of his father's death. No doubt there will be further trials at which he will be required to testify, which will be ordeal enough, should he recover sufficiently both his health and his balance of mind.

In the meantime, I am willing to rest on Miss Latterly's word.”

The judge turned to Ebenezer Goode.

Goode rose to his feet, his face grave. "I am familiar with Miss Latterly's nursing experience, my lord. If she will verify for the court upon what she bases her judgement, apart from Mr. Duffs word, I will abide by that.”

The judge turned to Hester.

With a bare minimum of words, very quietly to a silent court, she described the bruising and the tearing she had seen, and likened it to other such injuries she had treated in the Crimea, and what the soldiers themselves had told her.

She was thanked and excused. She returned to the body of the court feeling too numb with pity to be more than dimly aware of the press of people near her. She did not even move immediately when she felt a man close to her, and an arm around her.

"You did the right thing," Monk said gently, holding her with surprising strength, as if he would support her weight. "You could not change the truth by concealing it.”

"Some truths are better not known," she whispered back.

"I don't think so, not truths like this. They are only better learned at certain times and in certain ways.”

"What about Sylvestra? How will she bear it?”

"Little by little, a day at a time, and by knowing that whatever is built upon now will last, because it stands on reality, not on lies.

You cannot make her brave, that is something no one can do for someone else." He stopped, still holding her close.

"But why?" she said almost to herself. "Why did they risk everything to do something so… pointless?" And even as she said it remarks of Wade's came back to her, with utterly different meaning now, remarks about nature refining the race by winnowing out the unfit, the morally inferior. And she remembered Sylvestra's stories of Leighton Duffs love of danger in his steeple chasing days, the excitement of risks, the elation of having taken a chance, and beaten the odds. "What about Kynaston?" she whispered to Monk.

"Power," he replied. "The power to terrify and humiliate. Perhaps the righteous image he created for his pupils' parents was more than he could endure. We'll probably never know. Frankly I don't care. I'm a damned sight more concerned for the families they leave to struggle on… for Sylvestra and Rhys.”

"I think Fidelis Kynaston will help," she replied. "They will help each other. And perhaps Miss Wade too. They all have something appalling to face.”

"Perhaps they will go to India?" she thought aloud. "All of them, when Rhys is better. They couldn't stay here.”

"Maybe," he agreed. "Although it is amazing what you can face, if you have to." He would tell her about Runcorn some other time, later on, when they were alone and it was more appropriate.

"They'd like India," she insisted. "There is a great need for people out there who know something about nursing, especially women. I read it in Amalia's letters.”

"Do they know anything about nursing?" he asked with a smile.

"They could learn!”

He smiled more widely, but she did not see it.

The jury declined to retire. They returned a verdict of 'not guilty'.

Hester slid her hand into Monk's, and leaned even closer to him.

Anne Perry lives in Portmahomack, Scotland, and is the author of the Victorian mystery series featuring Thomas and Charlotte Pitt. Six other novels in her critically acclaimed William Monk series, THE FACE OF A STRANGER, A SUDDEN FEARFUL DEATH, A DANGEROUS MOURNING, SINS OF THE WOLF, DEFEND AND BETRAY, CAIN HIS BROTHER and WEIGHED IN THE BALANCE, are also available from Headline.