Anne Perry: Slaves of Obsession

“Because he gave his word to Mr. Trace before Mr. Breeland came here,” Judith replied. “Now please sit down and don’t place Mrs. Monk in the middle of our difficulties. It is quite unfair.” Taking Merrit’s obedience for granted, she turned to Hester. “Sometimes I wish my husband were in a different business. I am not sure if there is anything entirely without contention. Even if you were to sell tin baths or turnips, I daresay there would be someone on your doorstep declaring your demands were unrighteous or prejudicial to somebody else’s livelihood. But armaments arouse more emotions than most other things, and seem to depend upon so many reverses of fortune that cannot be foreseen.”

“Do they?” Hester was surprised. “I would have thought governments at least could see the probability of war long before it became inevitable.”

“Oh, usually, but there are times when it comes right out of nowhere at all,” Judith replied. “Naturally my husband, and Mr. Casbolt as well, study the affairs of the world very closely. But there are events that take everyone by surprise. The Third Chinese War just last year was a perfect example.”

Hester had no knowledge of it, and it must have been clear in her face.

Judith laughed. “It was all part of the Opium Wars we have with the Chinese every so often, but this one took everybody by surprise. Although how the Second Chinese War began was the most absurd. Apparently there was a schooner called Arrow , built and owned by the Chinese, although it had once been registered in British Hong Kong. Anyway, the Chinese authorities boarded the Arrow and arrested some of the crew, who were also Chinese. We decided that we had been insulted-”

“What?” Hester said in amazement. “I mean … I beg your pardon?”

“Precisely,” Judith agreed wryly. “We took offense, and used it as a pretext to start a minor war. The French discovered that a French missionary had been executed by the Chinese a few months before that, so they joined in as well. When the war finished various treaties were signed and we felt it safe to resume business with the Chinese as usual.” She grimaced. “Then quite unexpectedly the Third Chinese War broke out.”

“Does it affect armament sales?” Hester asked. “Surely only to the advantage, at least for the British?”

Judith shook her head very slightly. “Depends upon whom you were selling to! In this instance, not if you were selling to the Chinese, with whom we were going through a period of good relations.”

“Oh … I see.”

“Then perhaps we should be more careful to whom we sell guns?” Merrit said fiercely. “Instead of just to the highest bidder!”

Judith looked for a moment as if she were about to argue, then changed her mind. Hester formed the opinion that her hostess had had some variation of this conversation several times before, and on each of them failed to make any difference. It was eminently none of Hester’s business, and better left alone, yet the impulse in her, which so often Monk told her was arbitrary and opinionated, formed the words on her lips.

“To whom should we sell guns?” she asked with outward candor. “Apart from the Unionists in America, of course.”

Merrit was impervious to sarcasm. She was too idealistic to see any moderation to a cause.

“Where there is no oppression involved,” she said without hesitation. “Where people are fighting for their freedom.”

“Who would you have sold them to in the Indian Mutiny?”

Merrit stared at her.

“The Indians,” Hester answered for her. “But perhaps if you had seen what they had done with them, the massacres of women and children, you might have felt … confused, at the least. I know I am.”

Merrit looked suddenly very young. The gaslight on her cheeks emphasized their soft curve, almost childlike, and the fair hair where it curled on her neck.

Hester felt a surge of tenderness towards her, remembering how ardent she had been at that age, how full of fire to better the world, and sure that she knew how, without the faintest idea of the multitudinous layers of passion and pain intertwined with each other, and the conflicting beliefs, all so reasonable if taken alone. If innocence were not reborn with each generation, what hope was there that wrongs would ever be fought against?

“I am not happy about the morality of it either,” she said contritely. “I would rather have something relatively uncomplicated, like medicine. People’s lives are still in your hands, you can still make mistakes, terrible ones, but you have no doubt as to what you are trying to do, even if you don’t know how to do it.”

Merrit smiled tentatively. She recognized an olive branch and took it. “Aren’t you afraid sometimes?” she asked softly.

“Often. And of all sorts of things.”

Merrit stood still in the fading light. Only the very top of the aspen beyond her still caught the sun. She was fingering a rather heavy watch which had been tucked down her bosom, and now she had taken it out. She caught Hester’s eyes on it and the color deepened in her cheeks.

“Lyman gave it to me … Mr. Breeland,” she explained, avoiding her mother’s gaze. “I know it doesn’t really complement this dress, but I intend to keep it with me always, to the devil with fashion!” She lifted her chin a little, ready to defy any criticism.

Judith opened her mouth, then changed her mind.

“Perhaps you could wear it on your skirt?” Hester suggested. “It looks like a watch for use as much as ornament.”

Merrit’s face lightened. “That’s a good idea. I should have thought of that.”

“I tend to wear a useful watch rather than a pretty one,” Hester said. “One I cannot really see defeats the purpose.”

Merrit walked over to the chair opposite Hester and sat down. “I have the most tremendous admiration for people who dedicate themselves to the care of others,” she said earnestly. “Would it be intrusive or troublesome of me to ask you to tell us a little more about your experiences?”

Actually it was something Hester was very willing to leave behind her when there was nothing she could accomplish and no one to persuade. However, it would have been ungracious to refuse, so she spent the next hour answering Merrit’s eager questions and waiting for Judith to lead the conversation in another path, but Judith seemed to be just as interested, and her silence was one of deep attention.

When Trace had completed his business with Alberton he took his leave, and Alberton returned to the dining room, glanced at Casbolt, then seeing a slight nod, invited him and Monk to find more comfortable seats, not in the withdrawing room with the ladies but in the library.

“I owe you an apology, Mr. Monk,” Alberton said almost before they had made themselves comfortable. “I have certainly enjoyed your company this evening, and that of your wife, who is a most remarkable woman. But I invited you here because we need your help. Well, principally I do, but Casbolt is involved as well. I am sorry for misleading you in such a way, but the matter is very delicate, and in spite of Lady Callandra’s high opinion of you-which, by the way, was given as a friend, not professionally-I preferred to form my own judgment.”

Monk felt a moment’s resentment, mostly on Hester’s behalf, then realized that he might well have done the same thing himself, were he in Alberton’s position. He hoped it was nothing to do with guns, or a choice between Philo Trace and Lyman Breeland. He found Trace the more agreeable man, but he believed in Breeland’s cause far more. He did not feel as passionately as Hester, but the idea of slavery repelled him.

“I accept your apology,” he said with a slightly sardonic smile. “Now, if you can tell me the matter that troubles you, I will make my judgment as to whether I can help you with it-or wish to.”