William Monk 14 - The Shifting Tide

that Rathbone knew he would not raise the question again.
    “If he didn’t know,” Rathbone said quietly, “then you will have to tell him. The only way he can protect himself is to testify that he was mistaken, and Hodge could have fallen and hit his head.”
    “Or that Gould killed him, exactly as I first believed.”
    “Do you believe it now?”
    “No.” Again there was no hesitation.
    “Then we’ll have to find a way of getting Louvain to testify for him, or he’ll hang,” Rathbone warned him. “We can’t let the plague loose in London to save one man, however innocent.”
    Monk took a deep breath and rubbed the heel of his hand over his face. “I know. How many days till the trial?”
    “Day after tomorrow.”
    “I’ll see Louvain,” Monk promised. He straightened up, but there was a weariness inside him that bowed his shoulders and his face was ashen. “Durban is still hoping to find the crew.” His face crumpled. “How many people are there, Rathbone, that disappear and no one misses? How many can fall, and we all just press onward without even seeing the space they’ve left? Does anyone care? Are there people suffering, crippled with grief, and we don’t notice that either?”
    Rathbone wished he had a lie good enough to give even the remotest comfort, but he hadn’t. Whether anyone missed the crewmen he had no idea. They might be dead of plague in any town in the south of England, or more probably already at sea on another ship. There was no terror spreading, no cry of quarantine, evacuation, or fire to burn it out, to exorcise it like a thing from hell. But Monk was speaking of the void in his own life that Hester’s loss would create, and Rathbone knew that.
    And he was contemplating allowing himself to love Margaret just as deeply—wasn’t he? With all the strength of emotion he possessed. It defied every instinct of self-preservation he had followed all his life. It was a denial of sanity, the ultimate madness.
    Had he any choice? Can one decide whether to love or not? Yes, probably. One could walk away from life and choose half a life, paralysis of the soul.
    He had walked away from Hester, and she had been wise enough to refuse him anyway, perhaps for precisely that reason. Monk had had the courage of spirit to care, and she knew that, and valued it for the infinite worth it was. Now Monk would be racked by it forever if she died.
    Margaret was safe, as much as anything warm and living and vulnerable was ever safe. If he wanted to be part of life, not merely a watcher, then he would let himself love as well. Perhaps it was the nature of caring that you could not help it. There was no choice to make; your own nature had already made it. If you could pull back then you were not wholly involved.
    He had never admired Monk more than he did at this moment, for the courage it had taken him to risk everything. With that knowledge came a pity so deep it hollowed out new places within himself and filled them with a helplessness that twisted like a knife. There was nothing to say or do as Monk turned and walked to the door. Their friendship was deeper than Rathbone had acknowledged to himself before, and it was on the brink of being destroyed because part of Monk himself would be lost.
    If friendship could hurt so profoundly, what in heaven’s name could love do?
             
    Rathbone spent the rest of the day catching up on other work he had put aside in order to prepare for the Gould case, and much of the following morning also.
    However, his mind was made up regarding Margaret. Time was precious, far more so than he had appreciated until now. He had dithered on the brink of asking her to marry him. It was both cowardly and foolish. He had written to her and dispatched the letter by messenger, inviting her to dinner that evening, and rather than wait till this crisis was past, whatever the relief, or the irretrievable loss, he would tell her his feelings and ask her to marry him.
    As he dressed, regarding himself unusually critically in the glass, he was aware with surprise that he had taken it for granted that she would accept. It had not occurred to him until this moment that it was possible she would not.
    Then he realized why the nerves in his stomach were jumping and there was a tightness in his throat. It was not that she might decline. Everything in society and in her personal circumstances dictated that she accept, and he was perfectly certain that there was no