Anne Perry: Acceptable Loss

If the circumstances caused Hester a little more traveling, it was a small enough contribution to his success. Added to which, she really did like the house in Paradise Place, with its view over the infinitely changing water, not to mention the freedom from financial anxiety that a regular income gave them.

She walked briskly along Portpool Lane under the shadow of the Reid Brewery, and in at the door of the house that had once been part of a huge brothel. It was Oliver Rathbone who had helped her obtain the building, quite legally, but with considerable coercion of its previous owner, Squeaky Robinson. Squeaky had remained here, a partially reformed character. To begin with he had stayed because he had had nowhere else to go, but now he took a certain pride in the place, oozing self-righteousness at his newfound respectability.

Squeaky was in the entrance as she came in, his face gaunt, his stringy gray-white hair down to his collar as usual. He was wearing an ancient frock coat and today had on a faded silk cravat.

“We need more money,” he said as soon as Hester was through the door. “I dunno how you expect me to do all these things on sixpence ha’penny!”

“You had fifty pounds just a week ago,” she replied. She was so used to Squeaky’s complaints that she would have worried if he had said that all was well.

“Mrs. Margaret says we’re going to need new pans in the kitchen soon,” he retaliated. “Lots of ’em. Big ones. Sometimes I think we’re feeding half London.”

“Lady Rathbone,” Hester corrected him automatically. “And pans do wear out, Squeaky. They get to the point where they can’t be mended anymore.”

“Then, you tell her ladyship to come up with some money for ’em,” he said waspishly.

“What happened to the fifty pounds?”

“Sheets and medicines,” he replied instantly. “You can tell her now. She’s through there.” He jerked his head sideways, indicating the door to his left.

There was no point in putting it off. Not only would it look like cowardice, it would feel like it. As if obedient to his instruction, she went through into the next room.

Margaret Rathbone was standing near the central table with a pale blue notepad in her hand, and a pencil poised. She looked up as Hester came in. There was a moment’s total silence between them, as if neither had expected to see the other, and yet both of them must have been preparing for this inevitable meeting. It was the first since Lord Justice Sullivan’s suicide, and the accusations he had then made against Margaret’s father-that he was the force behind the pornography-and the blackmail that had finally ruined the judge. There was no proof, just unforgettable words, and drowned bodies. Margaret would never admit the possibility, but Hester could not deny it. It left them no bridge to each other.

Margaret was not a beautiful woman, but her features were regular and her bearing unusually graceful. She had a dignity without arrogance-an unusual gift. Now she put the notepad down and looked unblinkingly at Hester. Her expression was guarded, as yet without warmth.

“I have the new sheets,” she remarked. “Two dozen of them. They will more than make up for those we have to get rid of.”

“The old ones will be good to tear up for bandages,” Hester replied, walking farther into the room. “Thank you.”

Margaret looked a little surprised, as if thanking her were inappropriate. “It was not my money,” she observed.

“We would not have it if you had not persuaded someone to donate it,” Hester pointed out. She made herself smile. “But as always, Squeaky is now complaining that the old pans cannot be mended anymore and we need new ones.”

“Do we?”

Hester relaxed a little. “We will do. All I said was that we should start saving for them. I swear he wouldn’t be happy if he didn’t have something to be miserable about.”

There was a polite tap on the door. Hester answered it, and Claudine Burroughs came in. She was a broad-hipped middle-aged woman with a face that had once been handsome, but time and unhappiness had taken away her bloom. She had discovered both her independence of spirit and a considerable purpose in life when she had volunteered to help in the clinic, mostly to irritate her unimaginative husband. She had defied his orders to cease her association with such a place, with more courage than she had known she possessed.

“Good morning, Mrs. Monk,” she said cheerfully. “Morning, Lady Rathbone.” Without waiting for a reply she launched into an account of the new patients who had been admitted since yesterday evening, and the progress of the more serious cases that had been there for some time. There were the usual fevers, stab wounds, a dislocated shoulder, sores, and infestations. The only thing less ordinary was an abscess, which Claudine reported triumphantly she had lanced, and which was now clean and should heal.

Margaret winced at the thought of the pain, not to mention the mess.

Hester applauded Claudine’s medical confidence. They moved on to other housekeeping matters. Then they went to see the more serious cases, speaking only of business, and the morning passed quickly.

When Hester came downstairs to the entrance hall again, she found Oliver Rathbone waiting. She was startled to see him, off guard because she had been trying not to imagine what Monk would have said to him about Ballinger. Now a glance at Rathbone’s face-sensitive, intelligent, faintly quizzical-and she knew that Monk had not spoken to him yet. She felt guilty, as if in knowing what was to come and not saying it, she were somehow deceiving him.

“Good morning, Oliver,” she said with a slight smile. “If you are looking for Margaret, she is in the medicine room.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Are you in a hurry?”

She could have kicked herself for dismissing him so quickly. She had not only been discourteous, she had made her unease obvious. Would apologizing make it worse?

“Are you all right, Hester?” he asked, taking a step toward her. “What about Scuff? How is he?”

Rathbone had been with them when they had searched so frantically for Scuff. He knew exactly how she’d felt. The horror of that day had touched him as nothing else had ever done in his life of prosecuting or defending some of the worst crimes in London. She saw the memory of it in his eyes now, and the gentleness. Stupidly the tears prickled in her own, and her throat was tight with the fear of what might come for him, if Sullivan had been telling the truth. She turned away so he could not read her face.

“He still has awful nightmares,” she replied a little huskily. “I’m afraid it’s going to take …” She hesitated. “Time.”

“What will it take for him ever to be over it?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Thinking it’s over for his friends, other boys like him. Not lies.”

He smiled very slightly. “He’d never believe you anyway, Hester. You’re a terrible liar. Totally transparent.”

She met his eyes with a flash of wit. “Or else I’m so good that you’ve never caught me?”

For an instant his face was blank with surprise, and then he laughed.

At that moment Margaret came in. Hester turned toward her and was struck with a sudden, quite unnecessary stab of guilt. She was relieved when Rathbone stepped around her, his face lighting with pleasure.

“Margaret! My big case is over. Have you time to join me for luncheon?”

“I’d be delighted,” she replied without looking at Hester. “Especially if you can help me think of anyone further whom I can ask for money. We have new sheets, but soon we shall need pots and pans.” She did not add that she was the only one raising funds, but it hung, unspoken, in the air.