William Monk 13 - Death of a Stranger

have to see the problem and address it anyway.” She was aware of Margaret’s slight stiffening. Perhaps she was unaccustomed to such frankness from a woman to a man. It was unbecoming, not the way either to win or to keep a husband.
    “You mean decide for them?” Rathbone said with a wry smile. “That doesn’t sound like you, Hester.”
    “I’m a nurse, not a lawyer!” she said sharply. “Quite often I have to help people when they are beyond knowing anything for themselves. It is my skill to know what they need, and do it.”
    This time his smile was full of warmth, a genuine sweetness in it. “I know that. It is a kind of moral courage I have admired in you from the day we met. I find it a little overwhelming, because I don’t possess it myself.”
    She found tears prickling her eyes for an instant. She knew he meant it, and it was more precious to her than she had expected. But she still wished to argue. That was no help to women like Alice and Fanny. “Oliver . . .”
    Margaret leaned forward. “Sir Oliver,” she said urgently, her cheeks flushed but her eyes steady, “if you had seen that poor woman’s body with its broken arms and legs, if you could see her pain, her fear, and the shame she feels because she has taken to the streets to pay her husband’s debts, you would feel as we do, that to nurse her through the daily distress of at least partial recovery, only to set her out into Coldbath for it to happen again, because her debt is ever falling behind . . .”
    “Miss Ballinger . . .”
    “Then—” She stopped abruptly, the color deepening in her face as she became conscious of how forward she was being. “I am sorry,” she said contritely. “It is not your sort of case. And it is not as if we had any money to pay you.” She rose to her feet, her eyes downcast with embarrassment. “It was an act of desperation. . . .”
    “Miss Ballinger!” He rose also, stepping around the desk towards her. “Please,” he said gently. “I do not mean that I am unwilling, simply that I do not know what I can do! But I promise you that I will put my attention to it, and if there is anything that may be done within and through the law, I will tell you, and take your instructions. Money need not be a consideration. I hesitate only because I do not wish to promise what it is outside my power to give.”
    Margaret looked up at him quickly, her eyes candid and direct, her face filled with gratitude. “Thank you . . .”
    Hester realized with a shock of amazement that Rathbone was acceding to a request entirely against his interests and outside his nature in order not to refuse Margaret. It was not Hester he was pleasing, as it had always been in the past. She was glad he agreed, of course, and grateful, but it was an odd sense of rebuff that it was not for her. It was not obvious—in no way had he been less than friendly to her, but the quality of his attention was different. She knew it as certainly as a change of temperature in the air. She should have been happy for both of them. She was happy! She did not wish Rathbone to spend the rest of his life in love with her when she would only ever love Monk. But just today, this was as if a door had closed in front of her, and something in it hurt.
    Rathbone had turned towards her. She must smile, it was imperative.
    “Thank you,” she added to Margaret’s words. “I think we have told you everything that we know. It is the principle rather than individual women so far, but if we learn anything further we will inform you, of course.”
    There was nothing else for any of them to say, and they were conscious of the courtesy of his having seen them at all at the expense of other clients waiting. They excused themselves, thanking him again, and five minutes later were in a hansom riding back toward Coldbath Square. They did not speak, each lost in her own thoughts. Margaret was still flushed, her eyes wide, turned away from Hester and staring out of the window at the passing streets. No words could have been more eloquent of the fact that very plainly she had not forgotten her first meeting with Rathbone, nor had its emotional mark on her been worn away in the time between. But it was something too delicate to share. Had their roles been reversed, Hester would not have spoken either, and she did not think of intruding now. She and Margaret had been honest and natural friends. Part of such friendship was respect, and the understanding of when not to