William Monk 09 - A Breach of Promise

which pleased him, and he sensed the quiet courage to bear sorrow without complaint that seemed marked in the lines of her face. There was no bitterness in her mouth, no self-pity.
    It was Hester who raised the subject of Martha’s brother’s children and their deformities—and the fact that no one now knew their whereabouts.
    “How long ago?” Monk asked, turning to Martha.
    “Twenty-one years,” she replied, the hope she had allowed for a moment dying out of her eyes. She had been living in the past, telling him about it, talking as if it were only recently, when it was still possible to do something. Now it was foolish even to think of it.
    He was startled. Samuel would have been an elder brother. It was a hard thing. He felt for her as he watched her tired face with the grief washing back into it and the realization of pain lost in the past, irretrievable now, children who could not be found, helped or given the love which had been missed too long ago.
    He looked quickly at Hester. She was watching him steadily, her eyes so direct he had the feeling she was seeing his mind and his heart as clearly as anyone else might have seen his outward features. Surprisingly, it was not an intrusion and he did not resent it in the slightest.
    What he resented was the fact that he would let her down.He could not do what she wanted, and he knew it as exactly as if he had heard the words.
    Martha looked down at her hands, knotted in her lap. Then she made herself smile at Monk. “It wouldn’t matter even if I could find them,” she said quietly. “What could I do to help? I couldn’t take them then, and I couldn’t now. I just wish I knew. I … I wish they knew that they had somebody … that there was someone who belonged to them, who cared.”
    “I’ll look into it,” Monk said quietly, knowing he was a fool. “It may not be impossible.”
    Hope gleamed in Martha’s eyes. “Will you?” Then it faded again. “But I have very little money saved….”
    “I don’t think I can succeed,” he said honestly. “And I wouldn’t charge for failure,” he lied. He avoided Hester’s eyes although he could feel her gazing at him, feel the warmth as if it were sunlight, hot on his cheek. “Please don’t hope. It is very unlikely. I’ll simply try.”
    “Thank you, Mr. Monk,” Martha said as levelly as she could. “It is very good of you … indeed.”
    He stood up. It was not good at all, it was idiotic. Next time he saw Hester, he would tell her just how ridiculous it was in the plainest terms.
    “Save your thanks till I bring you something useful,” he said rather less generously. He felt guilty now. He had done it for Hester, and he would never be able to help this woman. “Good day, Miss Jackson. It is past time I was leaving. I must report to Sir Oliver. Good night, Hester.”
    She stood up and moved closer to him, smiling. “I shall accompany you to the door. Thank you, William.”
    He shot her a glance which should have frozen her and seemed to have no effect whatever.

6
    R ATHBONE WENT INTO COURT on Monday morning with not a scrap more evidence than he had possessed on the previous Friday afternoon. He had spoken with Monk and listened to all he could tell him, but it offered nothing he could use. Thinking of it now, he had given Monk an impossible task. It was foolish of him to have allowed himself to hope, but sitting at his table in the half-empty courtroom, he realized that he had.
    The gallery was filling only slowly. People were not interested. They had no feeling that the case was anything but the rather shabby emotional tragedy Sacheverall had made it seem and, to be frank, Rathbone had been unable to disprove. If Melville were hiding any excuse, no whisper of it showed.
    Rathbone looked sideways at him now. He was sitting hunched forward like a man expecting a blow and without defense against it. There seemed no willingness to fight in him, no anger, even no spirit. Rathbone had seldom had a client who frustrated him so profoundly. Even Zorah Rostova, equally determined to pursue a seemingly suicidal case, had had a passionate conviction that she was right and all the courage in the world to battle her cause.
    “Melville!” Rathbone said sharply, leaning forward to be closer to him.
    Melville turned. His face was very pale, his eyes almost aquamarine colored. He had a poet’s features, handsome yet delicate; the fire of genius in him was visible even in thesemiserable