William Monk 04 - A Sudden Fearful Death

and in a tenement if she’s not? And always hungry and always cold, and never sure next week will not be even worse.”
    “You are dreaming,” Monk said, but not critically. He understood her feeling and the facts that inspired it. “And even if it happens one day, which is unlikely because it is against the natural social order, it won’t help Julia Penrose or her sister. Anything I tell her—or don’t—will cause terrible harm.”
    They all remained in silence for several minutes, each wrestling with the problem in his or her own way, Hester by the window, Callandra leaning back in her chair, Monk on the edge of his. Finally it was Callandra who spoke.
    “I think you should tell Julia,” she said very quietly, her voice low and unhappy. “It is not a good solution, but I believe it is better than not telling her. If you do, then at least the decision what to do is hers, not yours. And as you say, she may well press the matter until she learns something, whatever you do. And please God that is the right decision. We can only hope.”
    Monk looked at Hester.
    “I agree,” she answered. “No solution is satisfactory, and you will ruin her peace whatever you say, but I think perhaps that is ruined anyway. If he continues, and Marianne is either seriously hurt or with child, it will be worse. And then Julia would blame herself—and you.”
    “What about my promise to Marianne?” he asked.
    Her eyes were filled with unhappiness.
    “Do you suppose she knows what dangers there are ahead? She is young, unmarried. She may not even be aware of what they are. Many girls have no idea of childbirth, or even what brings it about; they only discover in the marriage bed.”
    “I don’t know.” It was not enough of an answer. “I gave her my word.”
    “Than you will have to tell her that you cannot keep it,” Callandra replied. “Which will be very hard. But what is your alternative?”
    “To keep it.”
    “Will that not be even harder—if not at first, then later?”
    He knew that was true. He would not be able to turn his back on the affair and forget it. Every tragic possibility would haunt his imagination, and he would have to accept at least part of the responsibility for all of them.
    “Yes,” he admitted. “Yes—I shall have to go back and tell Marianne.”
    “I’m sorry.” Hester touched his arm briefly, then withdrew.
    They did not discuss it further. There was nothing more to say, and they could not help him. Instead they spoke of things that had nothing to do with the work of any of them, of the latest novels to be published and what they had heard said of them, of politics, of affairs in India and the fearful news of the mutiny, and the war in China. When they parted late into the summer night and Monk and Hester shared a hansom back to their respective lodgings, even that was done in companionable conversation.
    Naturally they stopped at Hester’s rooms first, the very sparsest of places because so frequently she was living in the house of her current patient. She was the only resident in her rooms at the moment because her patient was so nearly recovered she required attention only every other day, and did not see why she should house and feed a nurse from whom she now had so little service.
    Monk alighted and opened the door for her, handing her down to the pavement. It came to his lips to say how pleasant it had been to see her, then he swallowed the words. There was no need of them. Small compliments, however true, belonged to a more trivial relationship, one that sailed on the surface of things.
    “Good night,” he said simply, walking across the stones with her to the front door.
    “Good night, Monk,” she answered with a smile. “I shall think of you tomorrow.”
    He smiled back, ruefully, knowing she meant it and feeling a kind of comfort in the thought that he would not be alone.
    Behind him in the street the horse stamped and shifted position. There was nothing else to say. Hester let herself in with her key, and Monk returned to the hansom and climbed up as it moved off along the lamplit street.
    He was at Hastings Street at quarter to ten in the morning. It was mild and raining very slightly. The flowers in the gardens were beaded with moisture and somewhere a bird was singing with startling clarity.
    Monk would have given a great deal to have been able to turn and go back again to the Euston Road and not call at number fourteen. However, he did not hesitate on the