Anne Perry - Defend and Betray

“Go and see the Carlyons,” he urged. “Learn something of what is progressing in that wretched case. Poor woman! Although I don't know why I should say that.” His white eyebrows rose, making him look both belligerent and bemused. “I suppose some part of me refuses to believe she should kill her husband-especially in such a way. Not a woman's method. Women use something subtler, like poison-don't you think?” He looked at Hester's faintly surprised expression and did not wait for an answer. “Anyway, why should she kill him at all?” He frowned. “What could he have done to her to cause her to resort to such a-a-fatal and inexcusable violence?”

“I don't know,” Hester admitted, putting aside the mending she had been doing. “And rather more to the point, why does she not tell us? Why does she persist in this lie about jealousy? I fear it may be because she is afraid it is her daughter who is guilty, and she would rather hang than see her child perish.”

“You must do something,” Tiplady said with intense feeling. “You cannot allow her to sacrifice herself. At least…” He hesitated, pity twisting his emotions so plainly his face reflected every thought that passed through his mind: the doubt, the sudden understanding and the confusion again. “Oh, my dear Miss Latterly, what a terrible dilemma. Do we have the right to take from this poor creature her sacrifice for her child? If we prove her innocent, and her daughter guilty, surely that is the last thing she would wish? Do we then not rob her of the only precious thing she has left?”

“I don't know,” Hester answered very quietly, folding the linen and putting the needle and thimble back in their case. “But what if it was not either of them? What if she is confessing to protect Sabella, because she fears she is guilty, but in fact she is not? What hideous irony if we know, only when it is too late, that it was someone else altogether?”

He shut his eyes. “How perfectly appalling. Surely this friend of yours, Mr. Monk, can prevent such a thing? You say he is very clever, most particularly in this field.”

A flood of memory and sadness washed over her. “Cleverness is not always enough…”

“Then you had better go and see what you can learn for yourself,” he said decisively. “Find out what you can about this wretched General Carlyon. Someone must have hated him very dearly indeed. Go to luncheon with his family. Watch and listen, ask questions, do whatever it is detectives do. Goon!”

“I suppose you don't know anything about him?” she asked without hope, looking around the room a last time before going to her own quarters to prepare herself. Everything he might need seemed to be available for him, the maid would serve his meal, and she should be back by mid-afternoon herself.

“Well, as I said before, I know him by repute,” Tiplady replied somberly. “One cannot serve as long as I have and not know at least the names of all the generals of any note- and those of none.”

She smiled wryly. “And which was he?” Her own opinion of generals was not high.

“Ah…”He breathed out, looking at her with a twisted smile. “I don't know for myself, but he had a name as a soldier's soldier, a good-enough leader, inspiring, personally heroic, but outside uniform not a colorful man, tactically neither a hero nor a disaster.”

“He did not fight in the Crimea, then?” she said too quickly for thought or consideration to guard her tongue. “They were all one or the other-mostly the other.”

A smile puckered his lips against his will. He knew the army's weaknesses, but they were a closed subject, like family faults, not to be exposed or even admitted to outsiders- least of all women.

“No,” he said guardedly. “As I understand it he served most of his active time in India-and then spent a lot of years here at home, in high command, training younger officers and the like.”

“What was his personal reputation? What did people think of him?” She straightened -his blanket yet again, quite unnecessarily but from habit.

“I've no idea.” He seemed surprised to be asked. “Never heard anything at all. I told you-he was not personally a colorful man. For heaven's sake, do go and see Mrs. Sobell. You have to discover the truth in the matter and save poor Mrs. Carlyon-or the daughter.”

“Yes, Major. I am about to go.” And without adding anything further except a farewell, she left him alone to think and imagine until she should return.

Edith met her with a quick, anxious interest, rising from the chair where she had been sitting awkwardly, one leg folded under her. She looked tired and too pale for her dark mourning dress to flatter her. Her long fair hair was already pulled untidy, as if she had been running her hand over her head and had caught the strands of it absentmindedly.

“Ah, Hester. I am so glad you could come. The major did not mind? How good of him. Have you learned anything? What has Mr. Rathbone discovered? Oh, please, do come and sit down-here.” She indicated the place opposite where she had been, and resumed her own seat.

Hester obeyed, not bothering to arrange her skirts.

“I am afraid very little so far,” she answered, responding to the last question, knowing it was the only one which mattered. “And of course there will be limits to what he could tell me anyway, since I have no standing in the case.”

Edith looked momentarily confused, then quite suddenly she understood.

“Oh yes-of course.” Her face was bleak, as if the different nature of things lent a grimmer reality to it. “But he is working on it?”

“Of course. Mr. Monk is investigating. I expect he will come here in due course.”

“They won't tell him anything.” Edith's brows rose in surprise.

Hester smiled. “Not intentionally, I know. But he is already engaged with the possibility that it was not Alexandra who killed the general, and certainly not for the reason she said. Edith…”

Edith stared at her, waiting, her eyes intent.

“Edith, it may be that it was Sabella after all-but is that going to be an answer that Alexandra will want? Should we be doing her any service to prove it? She has chosen to give her life to save Sabella-if indeed Sabella is guilty.” She leaned forward earnestly.”But what if it was neither of them? If Alexandra simply thinks it is Sabella and she is confessing to protect her…”

“Yes,” Edith said eageiiy. “That would be marvelous! Hester, do you think it could be true?”

“Perhaps-but then who? Louisa? Maxim Furnival?”

“Ah.” The light died out of Edith's eyes. “Honestly, I wish it could be Louisa, but I doubt it. Why should she?”

“Might she really have been having an affair with the general, and he threw her over-told her it was all finished? You said she was not a woman to take rejection lightly.”

Edith's face reflected a curious mixture of emotions: amusement in her eyes, sadness in her mouth, even a shadow of guilt.

“You never knew Thaddeus, or you wouldn't seriously think of such a thing. He was…” She hesitated, her mind reaching for ideas and framing them into words. “He was… remote. Whatever passion there was in him was private, and chilly, not something to be shared. I never saw him deeply moved by anything.”

A quick smile touched her mouth, imagination, pity and regret in it. “Except stories of heroism, loyalty and sacrifice. I remember him reading 'Sohrab and Rustum' when it was first published four years ago.” She glanced at Hester and saw her incomprehension. “It's a tragic poem by Arnold.” The smile returned, bleak and sad.”It's a complicated story; the point is they are father and son, both great military heroes, and they kill each other without knowing who they are, because they have wound up on opposite sides in a war. It's very moving.”