William Monk 17 - Acceptable Loss

his shoulders squared a little as he said this, as though facing some threat himself.
    Rathbone smiled slightly, but utterly without pleasure. “I have some difficulty in deciding for myself what ‘cold blood’ really is.”
    At that moment the clerk knocked on the door and, with Rathbone’s permission, came in with the tray, of tea in a silver pot, a silvercream jug and sugar bowl, and silver tongs and teaspoons. The porcelain was plain, delicate, and ornamented only by a small blue crown. In spite of Rathbone’s refusal, the clerk had also brought a bottle of Napoleon brandy, and set it on the sideboard. He poured the tea, then excused himself and withdrew.
    “How civilized,” Cardew said with a desperate edge to his voice. “How intensely British. We sit here with tea in German porcelain cups, with French brandy if we need the fire of it, and we talk about murder, justice, and hanging. We would sit exactly like this, with the same tone of voice, if we were speaking of the weather.”
    “Because we have to use our intelligence, not our emotions,” Rathbone answered. “The self-indulgence of feelings will not help your son.”
    “Self-indulgence,” Cardew said with the first touch of bitterness that Rathbone had heard in him. “Rupert’s sin, which I never curbed in him. I saw it, and I let it pass, as if he would grow out of it. Why is it we still see our sons as children who can be excused, given time and love and patience, even when they are grown men and need to know better? The world will make no such excuses for them, and it is deceit that we do. Unspoken, of course, but a deceit nevertheless.”
    “Because we love day by day, inch by inch,” Rathbone replied. “We don’t notice the passing of time and the dangers that we should have prevented, or at least should have warned of. But none of that will help us now.” He looked steadily at Cardew. “You obviously are familiar with Parfitt’s name and reputation. How do you come to know that, sir?”
    Cardew was startled, then deeply uncomfortable.
    Rathbone had a nightmarish thought that perhaps Cardew himself had once been tempted to such pastimes as Parfitt had provided, and then he dismissed it as ridiculous and repulsive. Nevertheless, the question required an answer, and he waited for it.
    Cardew avoided his eyes again. “Rupert has caused me a certain embarrassment most of his adult life, let us say the last fifteen years, since he was eighteen. Often I have known in what ways because I … I helped him when necessary.” It was an evasion of the uglinessof the truth, and they were both embarrassingly aware of it. Even now Cardew could not bring himself to be literal.
    Rathbone was not enlightened by euphemisms. “Lord Cardew,” he said grimly, “I cannot do anything useful for your son if I don’t know what I am fighting against. What trouble? He paid for prostitution—unflattering, but not unusual. Certainly not a crime for which any gentleman is punished by the law, especially a man who is not married and therefore does not owe a sexual loyalty to anyone. It is not worth mentioning—and is far better than seducing a young woman of virtue and with expectation of marriage. That is a moral offense of some weight, but still not punishable by law.”
    Cardew’s face was ashen, his shoulders so tight that in places they strained the fabric of his jacket, but he said nothing.
    “Force would be a different matter,” Rathbone continued. “Rape is a crime, no matter who the victim is, although society would bother little if the woman were of questionable virtue anyway. Unless there were a great deal of violence involved. Is that the case?”
    “Rupert has a temper,” Cardew said almost under his breath, his voice cracking with emotional tension, “but so far as I am aware, his quarrels were always with other men.”
    “Violent?” Rathbone pressed.
    Cardew hesitated. “Yes … sometimes. I don’t know what they were about. I preferred not to.”
    “But they were not justified?”
    “Justified? How can beating a man nearly senseless be justified?”
    “Self-defense … or defense of someone else weaker, already injured, or in some other way helpless.”
    “I wish I could believe it was as excusable as that.”
    “Is that all—just fighting?”
    “Is that not enough?” Cardew said miserably. “The use of prostitutes, drunkenness, brawling until you injure a man for the rest of his life? Good God, Rathbone, Rupert