William Monk 17 - Acceptable Loss

him, used his services, and said nothing—that left a stain that would be indelible.
    And yet it seemed unacceptably cruel to ignore the father’s pain as if it were of no importance, or an embarrassment one would rather avoid.
    The door was opened by a butler whose expression was guarded, his eyes already showing the strain.
    “Good morning, madam. May I help you?”
    “Good morning.” She produced her card. “Mr. Rupert Cardew has been extremely generous to me and to the clinic for the poor that I run. It seems an appropriate time to offer Lord Cardew any service I can perform for him.” She smiled very slightly, sufficient only to show goodwill.
    The stiffness in the butler’s face eased. “Certainly, madam. If you care to come inside, I will inform his lordship that you are here.”
    She dropped her card onto the small silver tray, then followed the butler through the hall with its carved mantel and exquisitely wrought plaster ceiling and cornices. He left her in the firelit morning room with its faded carpets and the seascapes on the walls, the numerous bookcases, the spines lettered in gold, but of odd sizes. She knew at a glance that they were bought to read, not for show.
    The butler excused himself, closing the door. In other circumstances Hester might have looked at the titles of the books. It was always interesting to know what other people read, but she could not keep her mind on anything at the moment. Even in the silence, she kept imagining footsteps in the hall; her mind raced to find words that would sound anything but futile.
    She paced from the bookcase to the window and back again. She was staring at the garden when the door finally opened, catching her by surprise.
    “I apologize for keeping you waiting, Mrs. Monk,” Lord Cardew said quietly, closing the door behind him.
    “It is gracious of you to see me at all,” she answered. “I would not have been surprised had you declined. Especially since, now that I am here, I hardly know what to say that makes any sense—only that if I can be of service to you, then I wish to be.”
    Cardew looked exhausted. His skin was papery, as if there were no blood in the flesh beneath it. But it was the emptiness in his eyes thatshe found the most painful. There was a kind of shapeless panic in them, a despair too big for him to handle.
    “Thank you, but I have no idea what anyone can do,” he replied. “But your kindness is a small light in a very large darkness.” He was a slender man, but he must once have been elegant, supple, like a military man. He reminded her of the soldiers she had known in the past. The whole Crimean War seemed to belong to another age now. He also made her think of her own father, perhaps only because he also had looked older than he was, as if the weight of failure were crushing him.
    She had not been at home when her father had most needed her. He had died alone while she was nursing strangers in Sevastopol. He had trusted where he should not have; a man with every appearance of honor had deceived him totally. Her father was one of many so betrayed, but the debts he could not meet had broken his spirit. He had believed that taking his own life was the only course left him.
    That too, Hester had not been at home to prevent, or to aid her mother’s grief. What she could have done had never been spoken of; it was simply her absence at the time of need that wounded.
    “We can find out what really happened,” she said impulsively. “It can’t be as simple as it seems. Either it was someone else altogether who killed Parfitt, and Rupert doesn’t know who, or he does know but he is defending them because he believes that is the right thing to do. Or possibly he did kill Parfitt, but for a reason that would make it understandable.” She waited for Cardew to answer.
    He struggled with an emotion so sharp, the pain of it was visible in his face. “My dear Mrs. Monk, for all the help you give to the poor women who come to you in their distress, you can have no idea what kind of world men like Parfitt inhabit. I cannot be responsible for your stumbling into such abomination, even by accident. But your kindness is most touching. Your compassion is—”
    “Pointless,” she interrupted him gently, “if you will not permit me to be what help I can. I have been a nurse on the battlefield. I walked among the dead and the dying after Balaklava. I was in the hospital in Sevastopol, with the rats, the hunger, and the