William Monk 09 - A Breach of Promise

was treating her like a man, avoiding saying anything deeper, anything with passion and vulnerability in it, anything that bared his soul and left him undefended?
    “Perhaps we’d better just tell them the truth,” he said instead.
    She sat a little straighter in her seat, uncomfortable as the wheels jolted over a roughness in the road. Her back was like a ramrod, her shoulders stiff, pulling her jacket tight across the seams.
    “How much of it?” she asked.
    “I don’t know. Let’s find someone first.”
    They were coming into Parsons Green and rode in silencethrough its streets, which were rapidly getting busier now that it was mid-morning. They crossed over Putney Bridge. The river was dazzling in the sun, full of noisy traffic, water swirling under the piers as the current gathered speed in the increasing tide.
    On the far side, in Putney High Street, Monk alighted and paid the driver with a very generous tip, sufficient to get himself a nice luncheon and something for the horse. It had been an extraordinarily long journey. Then he held out his arm and assisted Hester to alight.
    As the cab drew away they looked at each other. The awkwardness was gone. They had a common purpose and it was all that mattered. Personal issues were forgotten.
    “The churchyard,” Hester said decisively. “That will be the best record of his death. We can go from there.”
    He agreed. “Which church?”
    “Pardon?” She had not thought of that.
    “Which church? We passed St. Mary’s on the way in. There are bound to be others. I remember a Baptist church on Wester Road, there’s a St. John’s on Putney Hill. That’s three at least.”
    She looked at him with slight chill. “Then the sooner we begin, the better. St. Mary’s is the closest. We’ll work along, unless you know anything about Samuel? I don’t suppose you know what his faith was, do you?”
    “No,” he admitted with a slight smile. “But I’d wager hers is as orthodox as possible.”
    It took them the rest of the morning to ask politely at St. Mary’s, visit the Baptist church on Wester Road, go along Oxford Road a few hundred yards to the Emanuel Church on Upper Richmond Road, and then move along that same considerable distance to the Wesleyan Chapel, just past the police station. At least they were saved the journey up Putney Hill to St. John’s. In the Wesleyan Chapel an elderly gentleman directed them to the chapel graveyard, and there they found a simple marker that said “Samuel Jackson, beloved husband of Dorothy, died September 27th, 1839.” No mention was madeof daughters, but that might have been for financial reasons as much as discretion. Carving cost money.
    Monk and Hester stood side by side in the sharp sun and cold wind for several minutes. It seemed inappropriate to speak, and unnecessary. Hester reached up her hand and put it very lightly on Monk’s arm, and without looking sideways at her, he knew the emotions that were going through her mind, just as they were through his.
    Eventually it was an old man walking through the grass with a bunch of daffodils in his hand who broke the spell.
    “Knew ’im, did yer?” he said quietly. “Nice chap ’e were. Hard to die like that, when yer’ve got little ones.”
    “No, we didn’t know him,” Monk answered, turning to the man and smiling very slightly. “But we know his sister … and we know the girls.”
    “Them two poor little things! Do you?” The old man’s face lit with amazement. “Y’know, I never reckoned as they’d still be alive. Yer didn’t take ’em in, did yer?” He looked at Hester, then blushed. “I’m sorry Mrs….?” He did not know, and left it hanging. “Of course you didn’t! They’d be twenty an’ odd now. I didn’t mean to be impertinent, like.”
    Hester shook her head quickly. “No, of course, Mr….”
    “Walcott, Harold Walcott, ma’am.”
    “Hester Latterly,” she replied. “But I know Martha Jackson, Samuel Jackson’s sister. I know her quite well.”
    Mr. Walcott shook his head, the breeze ruffling his thin hair.
    “I always liked Sam. Quick, ’e was, but kind, if you know what I mean? Loved them little girls something fierce.”
    “They had a terrible time after he died,” Hester said bleakly. “But we’ve just found them and taken them to Martha. They’ll be all right now. They’re in a very good house, with a distinguished soldier from the Indian army. He was badly injured in the Mutiny, scarred in the