William Monk 09 - A Breach of Promise

for Rathbone to use to help Melville out of this idiotic mess. I don’t say Melville deserves it. That isn’t the point anymore. He won’t marry Zillah Lambert. He probably won’t marry anyone. He has behaved like a fool; he doesn’t deserve to be ruined for it. Rathbone won’t use anything I find in court, simply to make Lambert negotiate before it is all too late.”
    She took a deep breath. She was sitting upright, still as if she had a ruler to her back. “Is it possible one of her flirtations went too far, overbalanced into something a trifle irresponsible?”
    “How would I know?”
    “Well, her parents wouldn’t discuss it,” she said with certainty. “Her father would probably have no idea, but her mother would. Mothers can read their daughters quite frighteningly well. I don’t know why it is, but we all tend to imagine our parents were never young or in love.” She shrugged. “Which is probably stupid, when you come to think of it. Ifthere is anybody at all one can be absolutely certain had some experience of intimacy, it is one’s mother. Otherwise one would not be here. But at fifteen or sixteen we never see it. I thought my mother the most old-fashioned and tepid of creatures alive.” She smiled to herself, her thoughts far away. “I wanted to wear a red dress. There was this young man I thought was marvelous. He had ginger hair and a wonderful mustache….”
    Monk held his tongue with great difficulty. He tried to imagine her at sixteen, and resented the young man with the mustache simply for having been there.
    “I wanted to impress him,” she went on ruefully. “The dress was very daring. He admired Lavinia Wentworth. She had black hair which curled. I thought the red dress would make the difference.” She laughed with a ripple of real humor, no pity or regret, her eyes bright. “I would have looked awful. I was so pale, and far too bony to wear red. Mama made me wear white and green. The young man with the mustache ignored me utterly. I don’t think he even saw me.”
    “Lavinia Wentworth?” He had to ask.
    “No—actually, Violet Grassmore.” She said it as if it still surprised her. “She told me afterwards that he had sticky hands and was the greatest bore she had ever met. Lavinia Wentworth went off with a young man in some sort of uniform. They became very close, but he was unsuitable, I don’t recall why. Lavinia’s mother took her away to Brighton or Hove or somewhere.”
    She swung around to face him.
    “That’s what you should look for! An association her mother stopped. That will be the one to pursue.”
    “Thank you. I suppose it is better than nothing. But there is so little time.”
    “Then you had better not waste any more of it,” she replied, but she did not stand up. “Would you like a cup of tea, and perhaps something to eat, before you begin to search?”
    “Yes,” he accepted immediately. Actually, he was veryhungry, and not in the least looking forward to what would almost certainly be a fruitless enquiry.
    In any event, he joined Hester and Martha Jackson for cold game pie and pickle and a pot of fresh tea, and then a slice each of plum duff. They talked of several things of very general interest. Monk was acutely aware of his promise to Martha to search for her two nieces. He had not even begun, because he had no thought that it would produce anything but further sadness. But sitting at the wooden table in the housekeeper’s room with the two women, both so earnest, upright, square-shouldered, a trifle thin, both trusting him, he was trapped into doing it, whatever the result. Martha Jackson was far too honest to lie to. Rathbone’s case would not stretch on much longer. There was no defense, and he could not spin it out beyond another day or two. Then Monk could begin to look for the girls.
    He smiled at Martha across the table, his conscience eased.
    Out of the corner of his eye he saw Hester’s lips curve upward. She had read his expression and knew exactly what it meant. He grunted and took more plum duff. If it proved too difficult, or if he found the answer and it was too harrowing, then he would not tell her. What good would it do for her to know if they had died alone, ill, unwanted? Better it remain a mystery, and leave her with her imagination and her hope.
    He would not tell Hester either. She was no good at concealing anything.
    He had another cup of tea, then thanked them and took his leave. He had perhaps two more days in