William Monk 15 - Dark Assassin

frozen, aware of Jenny beside her and Alan Argyll a few feet away, paralyzed.
    Rose did not hesitate a stroke but kept on playing in perfect time, swaying and tapping her feet.
    Suddenly the pianist abandoned all propriety and joined in. Her face was fixed in a terrified smile, showing all her teeth.
    Alan Argyll jerked to life, moving to stand at Hester’s elbow. “For heaven’s sake,” he hissed. “Can’t you do anything to stop her? This is appalling! Morgan Applegate will never live it down!”
    Hester realized she was probably the only person who could do anything. She was Rose’s friend. Therefore it was an act of the utmost compassion and necessity that she intervene. She walked forward to the dais, picked up her borrowed and rather long skirts and stepped up. Rose was still playing very elegantly. She was on to a different song now, but no better.
    “Rose!” Hester said quietly, but with as much authority as she could manage. “That’s enough now. Let the violinist have her instrument back. It’s time we went home.”
    “Home, sweet home!” Rose said cheerfully, and loudly. “That’s a terrible song, Hester. Positively maudlin! We’re celebrating Sir what’s-hisname’s death. At least—I mean we’re remembering his life with…with regrets…I shouldn’t have said that!” She started to laugh. “Far too close to the truth. Should never speak the truth at funerals. If a man was a crashing bore like Lord Kinsdale, you say he was fearfully well-bred.”
    There was a gasp of horror from the maid. “If a woman had a face like a burst boot, such as Lady Alcott,” she went on, “you say what a kind heart she had.” She laughed again, stepping back out of Hester’s reach and speaking even more loudly. “If he was a liar and a cheat, like Mr. Worthington, you praise his wit. If he betrayed his wife with half the neighborhood, you talk all about his generosity. Everyone keeps a straight face, and weeps a lot into their handkerchiefs to hide their laughter.” She hiccupped and ignored it. “You don’t understand,” she went on, looking a little dizzily at Hester. “You’ve spent too much time in the army.”
    “Oh, God!” someone groaned.
    Someone else began to giggle and couldn’t stop. It was wild, hilarious, hysterical laughter, soaring higher and higher.
    Rose was hopelessly drunk. She must have had far more than Hester had seen or realized. Was this the terrible weakness that Morgan Applegate had been trying to guard her against? Had he the faintest idea what she was like? What she was saying so devastatingly loudly was awful! The worse for being perfectly true, and what everyone was secretly thinking.
    Rose was about to start playing the violin again. The pianist was waiting, half in agony, half in ecstasy. It was probably a night she would remember for the rest of her life. She kept her eyes straight ahead and took a deep breath, then plunged in with a resounding bass chord, and then a trill on the top notes.
    Hester was desperate. It was all completely out of control, and part of her was on the edge of laughter. It was only the knowledge of ruin that stopped her joining in. She snatched the violin bow from Rose, gripping it around the middle in a fashion that probably did it little good. She flung it behind her, towards the back of the dais, where at least no one would tread on it. The original violinist was still collapsed in a heap, and someone was waving a fan at her quite uselessly. The cellist had disappeared completely.
    “You are going home because you are no longer welcome here,” Hester told Rose as sternly as she could. “Put that violin down and take my arm! Do as you are told!”
    “I thought we could play a game,” Rose protested. “Charades, don’t you think? Or perhaps not—we’re playing it all the time, really, aren’t we? Or blindman’s buff? We could all grope around, bumping into each other and grabbing hold of the prettiest, or the richest…no, that’s being done too. All the time. What do you suggest?” She looked at Hester expectantly.
    Hester could feel her face burning. “Come home,” she said between her teeth, suddenly overtaken with fury at the senseless destruction of a reputation. “Now!”
    Rose was startled by the tone rather than the words. Reluctantly she obeyed.
    Hester put an arm around her and grasped her wrist with her other hand. Awkwardly but efficiently she marched her to the edge of the dais. Rose, however,