William Monk 16 - Execution Dock

self-respect.”
    He stared at her, surprise and the beginning of a new understanding dawning in his eyes.
    She was not quite sure how much she wished to be understood. Perhaps she needed to change the subject rapidly, if she could do so and still learn from him what she needed to know. The wild idea that had begun in her mind was becoming stronger all the time.
    “There is a law against it?” she repeated urgently.
    “O’ course there's a law!” he snapped. “It don't make no difference. Can't yer understand that?”
    “Yes, I can.” She wanted to crush him but could not afford to. She needed his help, or at the very least some co operation. “So it would have to be sold where the police would not see it.”
    “O’ course it would,” he said in exasperation.
    “Where?”
    “Where? All over the place. In back alleys, in shops where it looks like decent books, financial books, ledgers, tracts on ‘ow ter mend sails or keep accounts, or anything yer like. I seen some as yer'd take fer Bibles, till yer looked close. Tobacconists sell ‘em, or bookshops, printers, all sorts.”
    “I see. Yes, very difficult to trace. Thank you.” She stood up and turned to leave, then hesitated. “Down in the alleys by the riverside, I suppose?”
    “Yeah. Or anywhere else. But only where folks go as knows wot they want. Yer won't find ‘em on the ‘Igh Street or any place as the likes o’ yer'd be going.”
    She gave him a slight smile. “Good. Thank you, Mr. Robinson. Don't look so sour. I shall not forget your tea.”
    Claudine was not happy to return home, but sooner or later it was inevitable; it always was.
    “You are late,” her husband observed as soon as she entered the drawing room, having gone into the house through the kitchen rather than be seen at the front in her clinic clothes. Now she was washed and changed into the sort of late-afternoon gown she customarily wore. It was fashionable, well-cut, richly colored, and a trifle restricting because of the tightly laced corset beneath it. Her hair was also becomingly dressed, as that of a lady in her station should be.
    “I'm sorry,” she apologized. There was no use explaining; he was not interested in reasons.
    “If you were sorry, you would not keep doing it,” he said tartly. He was a large man, broad-bellied, heavy-jowled, a highly successful property developer. In spite of his years, his hair was still thick and barely touched with gray. She looked at his sneering expression and wonderedhow she could ever have found him physically attractive. Perhaps necessity was the mother of acceptance as well as of invention?
    “You spend far too much time at that place,” he went on. “This is the third time in as many weeks that I have had to mention this to you. It will not do, Claudine. I have a right to expect certain duties of you, and you are not behaving appropriately at all. As my wife, you have social obligations, of which you are not unaware. Richmond told me you were not at his wife's party last Monday.” He said it as a challenge.
    “It was to raise money for charity in Africa,” she replied. “I was working for a charity here.”
    He lost his temper. “Oh, don't be absurd! You insulted a lady of considerable consequence in order to go fetching and carrying for a bunch of whores off the street. Have you lost absolutely all sense of who you are? If you have, then let me remind you who I am.”
    “I am perfectly aware of who you are, Wallace,” she said as calmly as she could. “I have spent years …” She nearly said “the best years of my life,” but they were not. Indeed, they had been the worst. “I have spent years of my life performing all the duties your career and your station required …”
    “And your station, Claudine,” he interrupted. “I think too often you forget that.” That was definitely an accusation. His face was reddening, and he moved a step closer to her.
    She did not move back. She would refuse to, no matter how close he came.
    “That station, which you take so lightly,” he went on, “provides the roof over your head, the food in your mouth, and the clothes on your back.”
    “Thank you, Wallace,” she said flatly. She felt no gratitude whatever. Would it have been so bad to have worked for it herself, and owned it without obligation? No, that was a fantasy. One then had to please whoever employed you. Everyone was bound to somebody else.
    He did not hear the sarcasm, or chose not to. But then