William Monk 03 - Defend and Betray
Arnold.” The smile returned, bleak and sad. “It’s a complicated story; the point is they are father and son, both great military heroes, and they kill each other without knowing who they are, because they have wound up on opposite sides in a war. It’s very moving.”
“And Thaddeus liked it?”
“And the stories of the great heroes of the past—ours and other people’s. The Spartans combing their hair before Thermopylae—they all died, you know, three hundred of them, but they saved Greece. And Horatius on the bridge …”
“I know,” Hester said quickly. “Macaulay’s ‘Lays of Ancient Rome.’ I begin to understand. There were the passions he could identify with: honor, duty, courage, loyalty—not bad things. I’m sorry …”
Edith gave her a look of sudden warmth. It was the first time they had spoken of Thaddeus as a person they couldcare about rather than merely as the center of a tragedy. “But I think he was a man of thought rather than feeling,” she went on, returning to the business of it. “Usually he was very controlled, very civilized. I suppose in some ways he was not unlike Mama. He had an absolute commitment to what is right, and I never knew him to step outside it—in his speech or his acts.”
She screwed up her face and shook her head a little. “If he had some secret passion for Louisa he hid it completely, and honestly I cannot imagine him so involved in it as to indulge himself in what he would consider a betrayal, not so much of Alexandra as of himself. You see, to him adultery would be wrong, against the sanctity of home and the values by which he lived. None of his heroes would do such a thing. It would be unimaginable.”
She lifted her shoulders high in an exaggerated shrug. “But suppose if he had, and then grown tired of her, or had an attack of conscience. I really believe that Louisa—whom I don’t much care for, but I must be honest, I think is quite clever enough to have seen it coming long before he said anything—would have preempted him by leaving him herself. She would choose to be the one to end it; she would never allow him to.”
“But if she loved him?” Hester pressed. “And some women do love the unattainable with a passion they never achieve for what is in their reach. Might she not be reluctant to believe he would never respond—and care so much she would rather kill him than …”
Edith laughed jerkily. “Oh Hester. Don’t be absurd! What a romantic you are. You live in a world of grand passions, undying love and devotion, and burning jealousy. Neither of them were remotely like that. Thaddeus was heroic, but he was also pompous, stuffy, very rigid in his views, and cold to talk to. One cannot always be reading epic poetry, you know. Most of the time he was a guarded, ungiving man. And Louisa is passionate only about herself. She likes to be loved, admired, envied—especially envied—and to be comfortable, to be the center of everyone’s attention. She wouldnever put involvement with anyone else before her own self-image. Added to that, she dresses gorgeously, parades around and flirts with her eyes, but Maxim is very proper about morality, you know? And he has the money. If Louisa went too far he wouldn’t stand for it.” She bit her soft lower lip. “He loved Alex very much, you know, but he denied himself anything with her. He wouldn’t let Louisa play fast and loose now.”
Hester watched Edith’s face carefully; she did not wish to hurt, but the thoughts were high in her mind. “But Thaddeus had money surely? If Louisa married him, she wouldn’t need Maxim’s money?”
Edith laughed outright. “Don’t be absurd! She’d be ruined if Maxim divorced her—and Thaddeus certainly wouldn’t get involved in anything like that. The scandal would ruin him too.”
“Yes, I suppose it would,” Hester agreed sensibly. She sat silently for several minutes, thoughts churning around in her head.
“I hate even to think of this at all,” Hester said with a shudder of memory. “But what if it were someone else altogether? Not any one of the guests, but one of the servants? Did he go to the Furnivals’ house often?”
“Yes, I believe so, but why on earth should a servant want to kill him? That’s too unlikely. I know you want to find something—but …”
“I don’t know. Something in the past? He was a general—he must have made both friends and enemies. Perhaps the motive for his death lies in his
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