Anne Perry - The Sins of the Wolf

“Are you sure?” he said anxiously. “You couldn’t have made a mistake, could you? You were tired, unfamiliar with the patient……” He looked acutely apologetic, his face pink, his eyes desperately earnest.

She wanted to be furious with him, but her anger died in pity and long familiarity. What was the point in hurting him? He was going to suffer enough as it was.

“No,” she said quickly. “There was one vial of medicine for each dose. I gave her one vial. She wasn’t some vague little old lady who didn’t know what she was doing, Charles. She was interesting, funny, wise, and very much aware of everything. She wouldn’t have allowed me to make a mistake, even if I had been in a frame of mind to do so.”

He frowned. “Then you mean someone else killed her deliberately?”

It was a very ugly thought, but inescapable.

“Yes.”

“Could the apothecary have made up a wrong medicine altogether?” He struggled for a more acceptable answer.

“No-I don’t think so. That was not the first one to be taken. If the whole lot had been wrong, the first one would have killed her. And who put the brooch in my bag? That certainly wasn’t the apothecary.”

“The lady’s maid?”

“That would be impossible to do by mistake. All her jewelry was together in her own traveling case, which was put in her bag for overnight. This one piece was loose in my bag, which was nothing like hers anyway, and the two were never together until we were on board the train.”

His face pinched with unhappiness. “Then I suppose someone meant to kill her… and to blame you.” He bit his lip, his eyes narrowing and his brows drawing down. “Hester, for God’s sake, why couldn’t you be content to work at some more respectable occupation? You are always getting involved in crimes and disasters of one sort or another. First the Grey case, then the Moidores, and the Carlyons, and that appalling business at the hospital. What is the matter with you? Is it that man Monk who is involving you in all this?”

The suggestion caught her on the raw, mostly her pride, and the idea that somehow Monk, or her affection for him, ruled her life.

“No it is not,” she said tartly. “Nursing is a vocation that is bound to be involved with death, now and again. People do die, Charles, most especially those who are ill to begin with.”

He looked confused. “But if Mrs. Farraline was so ill, why did they assume she was murdered? That seems most unreasonable to me.”

“She wasn’t ill!” Hester said furiously. She was caught in a trap of her own making, and she knew it. “She was just elderly, and had a slight condition of the heart. She could have lived for years.”

“You can’t have it both ways, Hester. Either her death was normal, and to be expected, or it wasn’t! Sometimes women are most illogical.” He smiled very slightly. It was not unkind, not even critical, merely patient.

It was like a spark to tinder.

“Rubbish!” she shouted. “Don’t you dare stand there and call me ‘most women.’ Anyway, most women are no more illogical than most men. We are just different, that’s all. We take less account of your so-called facts and more of people’s feelings. And we are more often right. And we are certainly a great deal more practical. You are all theories, half of which don’t work because there was something wrong in them, or something you didn’t know which makes nonsense of the rest.” She stopped abruptly, out of breath and conscious of the pitch and volume of her voice, and now suddenly aware that she was quarreling with the one person in the entire building, perhaps in the whole city, who was truly on her side, and who was finding nothing but grief from the whole affair. Perhaps she should apologize, pompous and quite mistaken as he was?

He preempted her by making the matter even worse.

“So who did kill Mrs. Farraline?” he asked with devastating practicality. “And why? Was it money? She was obviously far too old for any sort of romantic involvement.”

“People don’t stop being in love just because they are over thirty,” she snapped.

He stared at her. “I have never heard of a woman over sixty being the victim of a crime of passion,” he said, his voice rising slightly with disbelief.

“I didn’t say it was a crime of passion.”

“You are really being very trying, my dear. Why don’t you at least sit down, so we can talk a little more comfortably?” He indicated the cot, where they could sit side by side, and suited his own actions to his words. “Is there anything I may bring you to ease your situation at all? If they will allow it, I will certainly do so. I did bring some clean linen from your lodgings, but they took it from me on my way in. No doubt they will give it to you in due course.”

“Yes please. You could ask Imogen to find me some toilet soap. This carbolic takes the skin off my face. It’s fearful stuff.”

“Of course.” He winced in sympathy. “I am sure she will be pleased to. I shall bring it as soon as I am able.”

“Could Imogen not bring it? I should like to see her.” Even as she said it she knew it was foolish, and only inviting hurt.

A shadow crossed his eyes, and there was the faint beginning of a flush to his cheeks, as if he were aware of something wrong, but not certain what, or why.

“I am sorry, Hester, but I could not allow Imogen to come to this place. It would distress her fearfully. She would never be able to forget it, it would come back to her mind again and again. She would have nightmares. It is my duty to protect her from all that I can. I wish it could be more.” He looked hurt as he said it, as if the pain were within his own mind and body.

“Yes, it is a nightmare,” she said chokingly. “I dream about it too. Only when I wake up I’m not lying in my own bed in a safe home, with someone to look after me and protect me from reality. I’m still here, with the long, cold day in front of me, and another tomorrow, and the day after.”

His face closed over, as if he could not bear to grasp the knowledge.

“I know that, Hester. But that is not Imogen’s fault, nor mine. You chose your path. I did everything I could to dissuade you. I never ceased to try to convince you to marry, when you had offers, or could have had if you had given a little encouragement. But you would not listen. No, I’m afraid it is too late. Even if this matter is resolved as I pray it will be, and you are exonerated of all fault, you are unlikely to find any man offering you an honorable marriage, unless there is some widower who wishes for a decent woman to-”

“I don’t want some widower to keep house for,” she said, the tears thick in her voice. “I’d rather be paid as a housekeeper-and have my dignity, and the freedom to leave-than married as one, with the pretense that there was some kind of love in it, when he only wanted a servant he didn’t have to pay and I only wanted a roof over my head and food on my plate.”

Charles stood up, his face pale and tight.

“A great many marriages are merely convenient and practical to begin with. Often a mutual respect comes later. There is no loss of dignity in that.” His smile brightened his eyes and touched his lips. “For a woman, and you say women are so practical, you are the most romantic and totally impractical creature I ever knew.”

She stood up as well. Too full of emotion to answer.

“I shall bring you some soap next time I come. Please… please do not lose hope.” He said the words awkwardly, as if they were a matter of duty rather than anything he could mean. “Mr. Rathbone is the best possible-”

She cut him off. “I know!” She could not bear the rehearsed insincerity of it. “Thank you for coming.”