Anne Perry - Acceptable Loss

“I have a few minutes,” he told the clerk. “Come back after about ten minutes and say there is a client wishing to speak with me.”

“Yes, sir.” The clerk withdrew, and a moment later Hester came in. She looked calm and composed, but still very pale. She was dressed in the same blue-gray she often wore, and it still suited her just as well.

Rathbone stood up. “What can I do for you?” he asked quietly.

She sat down in the chair opposite the desk, as if she meant to remain.

He sat also; not to would have been discourteous.

“Probably nothing,” she said with a tiny smile. “I wanted to know if there was anything I could do to help you. William told me there was nothing, and that you might even prefer not to see me. I would understand that. But I would rather come and be asked to leave than not come and then afterward learn that there was something I could have done, or said.”

“How like you,” he replied. “Always do, never hesitate, and never abdicate.”

A shadow crossed her face, a moment of hurt.

“That was a compliment,” he said wryly. “I have spent too much of my life weighing and judging, and in the end doing nothing.”

“Not this time,” she answered. “There was nothing more you could have done. If Rupert hadn’t come forward, you would have won. I’m not sure that would have been a good thing, even for Margaret, not in the end.”

“It would have been a bad thing for Monk,” he said frankly. “Everyone would have said he had made a second mistake, gone after the wrong man because he had a personal vendetta against Ballinger over the Phillips affair. He might even have lost his job. I’m glad that didn’t happen.” Surprisingly, he meant that. He had not thought he would; the void inside himself was too big to allow much thought for anyone else.

Hester gave a slight shrug. “That’s true, and I thank you for it. But it’s past now. What about you?”

“I doubt I’ll lose any clients over it. No one wins every case.”

“For heaven’s sake, I know that!” she said impulsively. “Most people know perfectly well you only took the case because he was family and you had no choice! No one else would have managed a defense at all. And you nearly won.”

He looked at her steadily. “Did Monk persuade Rupert Cardew to speak?”

“No.” She did not evade his gaze. “I did. Not for William-at least, not only for him. It was for Scuff, and all the boys like him.”

“That won’t put an end to the trade, Hester.” The moment the words were out of his mouth, he regretted saying them.

“I know,” she conceded softly. “But it will stop some of it. Maybe quite a lot, at least for a while. People will know that we’re prepared to fight, and those who get caught will pay for it. Above all, Scuff will know.”

For a moment he could not speak, his throat was so tight, so choked and aching.

She put out her hand across the desk. She did not touch him, but she left it where, if he moved even a few inches, he could reach her.

“I’m sorry, Oliver. I really am sorry.”

“I know.”

She said nothing more for several moments.

There was a knock on the door.

“Come!” Rathbone answered.

The clerk came in. “Sir Oliver-”

“Ah, yes,” Rathbone said quickly. “Please bring some tea, and a few cookies, if you can find some.”

“Yes, sir.” The clerk withdrew obediently, his face calm with understanding, perhaps even a touch of relief.

Hester smiled. “Thank you. I’d like tea.”

He had asked for tea without thinking, but now he realized how much he wanted her to stay. He did not know how to begin, but the confusion inside him was an almost overwhelming pain. In a matter of months all the certainties he had begun to take for granted had gone.

“How is Margaret?” she said quietly. “I thought of going to see her, even though I have no idea what to say. Sometimes just being there is worth something. But I don’t think she would receive me. We … parted on bad terms.”

“She wouldn’t,” he agreed. “She blames you, at least in part. She blames everyone except her father. Most of all she blames me.” He knew there was bitterness in his voice, but he could not control it. His anger and pain came welling up, and it was a relief to let it flow. “She is convinced Ballinger is innocent and that it’s all a monstrous conspiracy of vengeance, cowardice, misplaced loyalty, and error. And on my part, professional ambition over love of family.” He needed Hester to deny it, to tell him he was right and that it was not true.

She looked stricken. “I’m sorry.” Her voice was so low, he could barely hear her.

“There was nothing else I could do!” he protested.

“I know that,” she answered quickly. “But disillusion is one of the worst pains we experience. Nobody can let go of their dreams without tearing themselves apart too. It’s like killing pieces of yourself. She’d blame everybody who sees what she can’t bear to see, because we won’t let her pretend anymore. Whether we mean to or not, we are the ones forcing reality on her.”

“What good would it do if I were to lie to her?” he protested. “Any hope now would be false.”

“Hope of what?” she asked. “That he is innocent, or of saving him from the gallows?”

He shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. Of saving him, I suppose. I don’t think she has even faced the possibility that he is guilty of any of it. Not of Parfitt’s murder, certainly not of Hattie’s, and not of blackmailing the wretched men who used the boat. If she believed any of it, I imagine the rest would have to follow. I don’t know what to do, even what to say. She’s treating me as if it were my fault.”

Hester shook her head fractionally. “That’s because you’re the only one who isn’t to blame. And you’re the one who won’t support her illusions.”

“I can’t!” he said desperately. “Lying is no good now. It won’t stop it from happening. It doesn’t affect the truth, or that everyone else can see it. Sooner or later she’s going to have to face the fact that her father’s guilty-not just of corrupting other people, finding and feeding on their weaknesses, but of blackmailing them for exactly what he has helped them to do. He profited from the torture and humiliation of children, and he murdered Parfitt. I still don’t know why. That seems to have been a pointless piece of violence, and completely unnecessary. And he murdered Hattie Benson because she would have testified that it wasn’t Rupert Cardew, the only other obvious suspect.”

He took a shaky breath, and went on. “If Margaret doesn’t even acknowledge that, then she’s going to spend her whole life angry, and bitter because her father was unjustly hanged. That’s a kind of terrible madness. It will destroy her.”

Hester put out her hand and touched him very gently. “Give her time, Oliver. Some things we can’t face immediately. As long as he protests his innocence she can’t turn her back on him, whatever the evidence. Could you, if it were your father?”

“My father would …” He stopped. What he had been going to say only supported Hester’s point. His father would never do such a thing? No, he wouldn’t. But, then, perhaps Margaret believed just as passionately in her father, regardless of evidence. Hester was right; she would not be released from it until Ballinger admitted his guilt. Perhaps she couldn’t be, without betraying herself, and the guilt for that would destroy her also.

How terribly wide the damage spread.

Hester smiled. “I know. I love your father, and I don’t believe he would ever even think of anything like this. But, then, Margaret would feel the same. Sometimes we only know one side of a person we love so intensely.”