William Monk 02 - A Dangerous Mourning

him.
    “No, none at all. She barely spoke to us that evening, except a silly argument over dinner, but nothing new was said.”
    “What was the argument about?”
    “Nothing in particular—just frayed tempers.” She looked straight ahead of her. “It was certainly nothing about where she went that afternoon, and nothing about any secret.”
    “Thank you, Mrs. Moidore. You have been very courteous.” He stopped and she stopped also, relaxing a little as she sensed he was leaving.
    “I wish I could help, Mr. Monk,” she said with her face suddenly pinched and sad. For a moment grief overtook anxiety for herself and fear for the future. “If I recall anything—”
    “Tell me—or Mr. Evan. Good day, ma’am.”
    “Good day.” And she turned and walked away, but whenshe had gone ten or fifteen yards she looked back again, not to say anything, simply to watch him leave the path and go back towards Piccadilly.
       Monk knew that Cyprian Moidore was at his club, but he did not wish to ask for entry and interview him there because he felt it highly likely that he would be refused, and the humiliation would burn. Instead he waited outside on the pavement, kicking his heels, turning over in his mind what he would ask Cyprian when he finally came out.
    Monk had been waiting about a quarter of an hour when two men passed him walking up towards Half Moon Street. There was something in the gait of one of them that struck a sharp chord in his memory, so vivid that he started forward to accost him. He had actually gone half a dozen steps before he realized that he had no idea who the man was, simply that for a moment he had seemed intimately familiar, and that there was both hope and sadness in him in that instant—and a terrible foreboding of pain to come.
    He stood for another thirty minutes in the wind and fitful sun trying to bring back the face that had flashed on his recollection so briefly: a handsome, aristocratic face of a man at least sixty. And he knew the voice was light, very civilized, even a little affected—and knew it had been a major force in his life and the realization of ambition. He had copied him, his dress, his manner, even his inflection, in trying to lose his own unsophisticated Northumberland accent.
    But all he recaptured were fragments, gone as soon as they were there, a feeling of success which was empty of flavor, a recurring pain as of some loss and some responsibility unfulfilled.
    He was still standing undecided when Cyprian Moidore came down the steps of his club and along the street, only noticing Monk when he all but bumped into him.
    “Oh—Monk.” He stopped short. “Are you looking for me?”
    Monk recalled himself to the present with a jolt.
    “Yes—if you please, sir.”
    Cyprian looked anxious. “Have you—have you learned something?”
    “No sir, I merely wanted to ask you more about your family.”
    “Oh.” Cyprian started to walk again and Monk fell in beside him, back towards the park. Cyprian was dressed extremely fashionably, his concession to mourning in his dark coat over the jacket above the modern short waistcoat with its shawl collar, and his top hat was tall and straight sided. “Couldn’t it have waited until I got home?” he asked with a frown.
    “I just spoke to Mrs. Moidore, sir; in Green Park.”
    Cyprian seemed surprised, even a trifle discomfited. “I doubt she can tell you much. What exactly is it you wish to ask?”
    Monk was obliged to walk smartly to keep up with him. “How long has your aunt, Mrs. Sandeman, lived in your father’s house, sir?”
    Cyprian winced very slightly, only a shadow across his face.
    “Since shortly after her husband died,” he replied brusquely.
    Monk lengthened his own stride to match, avoiding bumping into the people moving less rapidly or passing in the opposite direction.
    “Are she and your father very close?” He knew they were not; he had not forgotten the look on Fenella’s face as she had left the morning room in Queen Anne Street.
    Cyprian hesitated, then decided the lie would be transparent, if not now, then later.
    “No. Aunt Fenella found herself in very reduced circumstances.” His face was tight; he hated exposing such vulnerability. “Papa offered her a home. It is a natural family responsibility.”
    Monk tried to imagine it, the personal sense of obligation, the duty of gratitude, the implicit requirement of certain forms of obedience. He would like to know what affection there