William Monk 15 - Dark Assassin

the young woman who had so recently lost her father in a way Hester could understand far more than she cared to remember. She had thought her own loss had been dealt with in her mind and the wound of it healed over. Now it was like a bone that was broken long ago but aches again with the cold weather, a pain deep inside, wakening unexpectedly, too covered over with scars to reach again, and yet sometimes hurting as sharply as when it had been new.
    She wanted to hide it from Monk. She could see in the shadow in his eyes, the line of his lips, that he was aware of the memory in her, and that he was pursuing the Havilland case at least in part because Mary made him think of Hester. Inside he was reacting to the old injustice as well as the new.
    She wanted to smile at him and tell him that it did not hurt anymore. But she would not lie to him. And it was going to hurt more in the loneliness of the house with only chores to keep her busy, no challenge, nothing to fight. She reached out to touch him, to be close to him and say nothing. Sometimes explanations intruded into understanding that was better in silence.
     
    In the morning Hester visited a gentleman she had once nursed through a serious illness. She was delighted to see that he was in much improved health, although he tired more quickly than earlier. She had gone principally for the purpose of learning from him which member of Parliament to seek out regarding the method and regulations of the new construction of sewers.
    She came away with the conviction that it was unquestionably Morgan Applegate. She even obtained a warm letter of introduction so that she might call upon him immediately.
    Since she was already dressed in the best clothes she had, and incidentally the warmest, she bought herself a little luncheon from a street peddler—something she had become used to lately. By early afternoon she was at the front door of the home of Morgan Applegate, M.P.
    It was opened by a short, extremely plump butler who took her letter of introduction. He showed her into a morning room with a roaring fire that gleamed red and gold on the polished furniture and in the copper globes that decorated the handsome fender.
    It was a full quarter hour before Morgan Applegate himself appeared. He was a most agreeable-looking man, of average height, with an aquiline face that yet managed to look mild in spite of a very obvious intelligence. His fairish hair was receding, and he was clean-shaven.
    He greeted Hester courteously, invited her to sit, then asked what he might do to be of assistance to her.
    She told him of her visit to the excavations the previous day, without mentioning Sutton’s name or occupation.
    He stopped her in midsentence. “I am aware of this problem, Mrs. Monk.”
    Her heart sank. The fear of typhoid was everywhere, and the queen was in the grip of a desperate, almost uncontrollable grief since Prince Albert’s death from typhoid. If Applegate was a man of any ambition, he would not risk his career by stating an opinion that must be bound to anger and offend many.
    “Mr. Applegate,” she said earnestly, “I do understand the very immediate need for new and adequate sewers. I nursed men dying of typhoid in the Crimea, and it is something I could never forget or take lightly. But if you had seen the dangers—”
    “Mrs. Monk”—he interrupted her again, leaning forward a little in the chair he had taken opposite her—“I am aware of the matter because it was drawn to my attention by someone else, someone even more disturbed by the possibility of disaster than you are. She gave her whole time and attention to it, and I fear perhaps even her sanity.” His face was very grave, and there was an acute consciousness of pain in his eyes. “My wife was very fond of her, and I held her in high regard myself.”
    “Held?” Hester said with a chill. “What happened to her?”
    Now there was no mistaking his distress. “Of that I am not certain. I was informed only of the merest details, and since they are unclear, I prefer not to repeat them. It is no slight upon you, Mrs. Monk, it is a respect for the dead. She was a young woman of great courage, a kind of high daring. In spite of personal loss and forfeit of much chance of happiness, she placed honor first, and it seems to have exacted from her a terrible price. Please do not press me to say more.”
    But it was impossible for Hester to leave it. She was the equal of anyone on earth for compassion,