A Breach of Promise

by Anne Perry

  “I’m … Martha…. I’m your papa’s sister.” The tears spilled over as she said it, a rush of memory overwhelming her.

  “M-Martha?” Phemie said awkwardly. Her voice was not unpleasant, but she found speech difficult as no one had taken the time to try to teach her to master her disability.

  “That’s right,” Monk encouraged her. He looked at Leda, the younger, and he already knew her the more serious, more conscious of her affliction.

  “M-Mar-tha?” Leda tried hard, licking her misshapen lip.

  Martha smiled through her tears, taking a step forward instinctively, then stopping. It was plain in her face she was afraid of moving too quickly. They did not know her. They might not wish to be touched by a stranger … and she was a stranger to them still.

  Phemie held out her hand in response, slowly at first.

  Martha took it gently, holding out her other hand to Leda.

  There was a moment’s silence as the lights inside the hallway shone out into the gray afternoon, reflecting in the drifting rain and the cabs and carriages splashing along the street behind the sodden man with hair plastered across his face in dark streaks, his clothes sticking to him, and two gaunt and ragged young women, hair like rats’ tails, clothes torn and thin.

  Then Leda stretched her hand and gave it to Martha, holding on to her with surprising strength.

  “Come inside,” Martha invited. “Get warm and dry … and have some hot soup.”

  Monk found himself grinning idiotically. He wanted to laugh with joy.

  “I think you had better come too, Mr. Monk,” Martha said in a very unbusinesslike tone. “You look terrible. I’ll find you some better clothes before you see Miss Latterly. I’m sure something of Mr. Gabriel’s will fit you, for the time being. Then I’ll let Miss Latterly know you are here.”

  He wanted to tell Hester himself, see her face when he said he had found the girls. It was perhaps childish, but it mattered to him with a fierceness that startled him.

  “I …” he began, then did not know what to say. How could he explain what he felt without sounding absurd? Then he remembered Delphine Lambert. “I have something very urgent to tell her.”

  Martha looked at him doubtfully, but she was too grateful to deny him anything at all.

  “I’ll tell her you are here,” she agreed. She regarded his filthy and disreputable state ruefully. “You’d better wait in the pantry. But don’t stand on the carpet … and don’t sit down!”

  “I won’t,” he promised, then followed her obediently as she led the two girls towards the green baize door through to the servants’ quarters, guiding them as they stared in awe. They had never been inside a house so large or so clean—or so warm—in their lives.

  Martha pointed to the butler’s pantry, which was presently empty, and promised to send the maid up with a message to Hester.

  It was less than five minutes before she came down, only the most momentary surprise on her face when she saw his state. She closed the door.

  “What happened?” she demanded, her face eager. “Tillie said Martha has two fearful-looking girls with her, wet as rats and about as pretty. Did you find them?” Her eyes were wide, her whole expression burning with hope.

  He had meant to be calm, to have dignity, to behave as if he had been in control of himself all the time. It slipped away without his even noticing it.

  He did not speak, he simply nodded, smiling so widely he could hardly form the words.

  She abandoned any thought of restraint and ran forward, throwing her arms around him, holding him so fiercely she knocked the breath from him.

  He hesitated a moment. This was not really what he had intended to do. It was impulsive, too careless of consequence. But even while the thoughts were in his mind, his arms tightened around her and he held her close to him, feeling the strength of her. He bent his head to her cheek, her hair, and smelled its sweetness. She was crying with relief.

  “That’s … wonderful!” She sobbed, sniffing hard. “You are superb! I didn’t think you could do it. It’s marvelous. Are they going to be all right?” She did not let go of him or look up, but left her head buried on his shoulder and her grip around him as if letting go might destroy the reality of what he had said.

  “I don’t know,” he answered honestly, still holding her too. He had no need to, but it seemed natural. He thought of letting go, of straightening up, but he really did not want to. “I’ve no idea what she’s going to do with them. They’re not fit for ordinary service.”

  “We’ll have to find something,” she answered, as if it were a simple thing and to be taken for granted.

  “That is not all,” he said more thoughtfully. He had to tell her the other fact, the one which now was beginning to make such hideous sense.

  She was quite still. “What else is there?”

  “You remember Martha told us their mother abandoned them … Dolly Jackson, Samuel’s widow?”

  “Yes?”

  “I know where she is.”

  This time she did move. She straightened up and pulled away, staring up at him, her face defiant, eyes blazing.

  “She can’t have them back! She left them … that is the end of it for her!” Her indignation dared him to argue.

  “Of course it is,” he agreed. “Except that that is not all….”

  She caught the emotion in his face, the sense of something new and of vital and different meaning.

  “What?” she demanded. “What is it, William?”

  “Delphine Lambert,” he answered.

  She blinked. She had no idea what he meant. The truth had not entered her mind as a possibility.

  “Delphine Lambert,” he repeated. “I am almost certain, certain in my own mind, that she and Dolly Jackson are the same person.”

  She gasped. “That’s absurd! How could they be? Dolly Jackson was … well—” She stopped. He could see in her eyes that now she was considering it. “Well … she … why? Why would you think that?”

  “If you had seen her and then seen those girls, you wouldn’t ask. When Samuel died, Dolly Jackson put the two girls into an orphanage and disappeared, to try to improve her position, marry again, presumably as well as possible. She was a very pretty and ambitious woman. She succeeded superbly. She married Barton Lambert, who gave her everything she wanted.”

  She looked at him with slowly dawning comprehension.

  “But she did not dare to give him the one thing he wished: children,” he went on. “She had already had two deformed children. So she adopted a child—a perfect child—and she groomed her for the perfect marriage.”

  Hester did not speak, but her face reflected her sense of awe and pity.

  The door opened and Perdita burst in in a flurry of skirts, breathless.

  “Martha says you’ve found the girls! They are down in the kitchen right now!”

  Reluctantly, Monk let go of Hester, amazed that he was not more self-conscious of being seen in such a position.

  Perdita looked at his filthy appearance with surprise. A month ago she would have been scandalized. Now she was only concerned.

  “Is it true? Have you?”

  “Yes,” Monk answered. “Only just rescued them from being shipped abroad as white slaves.” He heard Hester gasp. “I found them actually on the boat.” He glanced down at the floor where he had created a pool of water. “I’m sorry. I half fell in the river.” He smiled ruefully.

  “You must be frozen!” Perdita exclaimed—the white slave trade was not in her knowledge as it was in Hester’s. “I’ll have someone draw you a hot bath. I’m sure you can borrow some of Gabriel’s clothes. Then we must think what to do with these girls.”

  Hester swallowed, unconsciously smoothing down her dress, now thoroughly wet, also more than a little dirty, where she had pressed against Monk.

  “Can you train them to work here?” She turned from Perdita to Monk and back again. “Can you?” There was a faint flush in her cheeks at the presumption.


  Before Perdita could reply, Monk interrupted. Hester had not seen them. She had no idea of the reality of their disfigurement, or their deafness, their sheer uncouthness from a lifetime of neglect and abuse. In their entire lives they had seen and heard nothing but the insides of taverns, gin mills and brothels.

  “You can’t use them as—” He stopped again. How could he say this? Hester was watching him with anxiety and disbelief. “They’re …” He glanced down at his filthy clothes, then up at Perdita. There was no point in anything but the truth. “They’ve spent their lives in gin mills and brothels. They’re deaf—and they’re disfigured.”

  Perdita’s face filled with horror, then pity. Her chin lifted. “Well, we don’t have much company at present, maybe not at all. This could be the very best house in which to train such people.” She did not add any note of anger or bitterness, nor was there any in her face. There was no thought of self.

  Hester looked at her with a respect which was wholehearted and full of joy.

  Perdita recognized it, and it was the final seal upon her resolve.

  “Shall we go and tell Gabriel?” she suggested. “Then you really must get warmed up, Mr. Monk. You must be feeling wretched.”

  “Of course,” he agreed. He wished to see Gabriel’s reaction himself. He could not rest until he did. He followed Perdita and Hester out of the butler’s pantry and along the corridor to the servants’ stairs, up them and then through the top door to the main wing. He was aware of squelching with every step, and that someone else would have to clean up after him, but perhaps it was worth it this time.

  Perdita threw open Gabriel’s door. “It’s right!” she said without waiting. “He has got them! They’re here!”

  Gabriel looked at Monk, his eyes bright.

  Monk nodded. “They’re in the kitchen, getting cleaned up and fed.” Gabriel would know what he meant. “They’ve been on the streets since they were three years old.”

  Gabriel’s face also filled with pity, and a hard, hurting rage. Even his own disfigurement could not mask it.

  “We’ll look after them,” he said without hesitation.

  Monk did not argue. He was so cold that in spite of the pleasure he felt, the almost overwhelming sense of exhilaration and relief, he was now shaking and his legs had almost lost sensation. Shivers were running through him and his teeth were chattering.

  Hester must have noticed, because she excused them and took him to the guest bathroom and sent for hot water while she then went to Gabriel’s wardrobe to find him clean, dry clothes.

  Afterwards Martha sent up a bowl of hot thick soup from the kitchen and Monk sat in a chair by the banked-up fire in Hester’s sitting room enjoying the heat inside and out, and the savory taste in his mouth of chicken and herbs.

  Hester was watching him, her eyes narrowed, her brows drawn together.

  “Did you really mean it that you believe Delphine Lambert is the same person as Dolly Jackson?”

  He had no doubt. “Yes. If you look at those girls, especially Leda, the resemblance is startling. It is almost a mirror image, only distorted by the mouth. But you can see what she was meant to be. No one could look at them both and not think of it. She had not only one deformed child, Hester, she had two! No wonder she had to leave them behind her if she was going to make her way. She could never admit that to anyone. It’s like having madness in the blood. What chance would Zillah have of marrying well?”

  “But she’s not related!” Hester protested, though her voice was hollow. She knew, as Monk did, that even if they knew Zillah was adopted people would not make that distinction. She was looking at him steadily, searching his face, waiting for him to go on.

  “She knew I was looking into the family past, anything I could find that could have put Melville off marrying Zillah. She must have known that if I went on long enough I should find that Zillah was adopted. Perhaps if Melville had gone on fighting the case, I would even have traced her back as far as Putney … and Samuel Jackson.”

  “If Keelin had lived?” She repeated the words in a voice little more than a whisper. “Are you saying that Delphine Lambert could have killed her?”

  “I don’t know … perhaps I am.” He watched her face, seeing her eyes widen and slowly belief follow incredulity.

  “But how?” she breathed softly. “How did she do it? She was never alone with her … you said so. In fact, you said there was no way anyone could have poisoned her. She didn’t eat or drink anything in the court all afternoon.” She shook her head. “You couldn’t even work out how she could have taken it herself.”

  “So obviously we missed something.” He poked his finger at the table in which his empty soup bowl rested. “She did take it. That is the one thing we can be certain of. It was done … whomever by. We missed it.”

  She thought for a few moments in silence, her elbows on the table, her chin resting on her hands.

  “Tell me about the day in court,” she asked at length. “Describe it for me as if you wanted me to draw it for you, knowing I wasn’t there. Treat it as if I had never been in a court before. Don’t leave out anything you saw.”

  There was no point in it, but he obliged. He told her what the room was like, where everyone sat, how they were dressed and what function they filled. She listened intently, even though most of it was already familiar to her.

  “And the adjournment?” she asked. “What happened then?”

  He laughed abruptly. “Keelin came out of the courtroom and stood a little to the left of the doorway talking to Rathbone for a few minutes. Then Rathbone left with Sacheverall to go and argue again. I don’t know where they went, only that it was entirely fruitless.”

  “How long were they gone?” she interrupted, looking hopeful.

  He shook his head. “About ten minutes, maybe fifteen. But Keelin didn’t eat or drink anything, nor did she go to the cloakroom. She was there in the hall all the time, in full public view.”

  “Alone?” she persisted, refusing to give up.

  “Yes …” He pictured it vividly, it seemed so unnecessarily, publicly hurtful. “Except that Delphine went over to her with a packet, spoke to her for a moment, then when Keelin held up her hands, Delphine opened the packet and tipped it out into her cupped palms. It was jewelry she had given Zillah. They were dusty …”

  “Dust?” Hester said slowly.

  “Possibly powder … I don’t know.”

  “But something?”

  “Yes … why? It wasn’t anything edible. Delphine did not pass her anything she could eat or drink—just the jewelry. She tipped it out so she could itemize each piece and make Keelin acknowledge that she had received it all back—count out each item.”

  “What did Melville do then?” Hester was leaning forward now.

  “She put the jewelry in her inside pocket,” he continued. “She looked … wretched … as if she had been kicked.”

  Hester winced. “And then what?”

  “Then Rathbone came back, spoke to Keelin for a few moments, and they returned to court.”

  Hester sat for a while thinking silently. It did not seem to make any sense. Monk thought of the afternoon session, the tension and despair. He could picture Keelin Melville safely next to Rathbone, her face tense, the light reflecting in her clear eyes, which were almost the color of aquamarine. Her skin was very fair, spattered with freckles, her features fine but with a remarkable inner power. It was the face of a visionary. And her hands were beautiful too, strong and slender, perfectly proportioned … except that she bit her nails—not badly, but enough to make them too short. It seemed to be in moments of greatest anxiety. He could recall her hands in her mouth when … Hands in her mouth!

  “She bit her nails!” he almost shouted, leaning towards Hester and clasping her hand where it lay on the table, turning it over. “She bit her nails!”

  “What?” She looked startled.

  He rubbed his fingertips along the tabletop, then put them to his lips.r />
  “The powder …” she breathed out the words. “If that was the belladonna, then she put it to her lips … into her mouth. Her hands were covered in it from the jewelry!”

  “Would it be enough?” He barely dared ask.

  “It could be …” she said slowly, staring back at him. “If it were pure … to act within a few hours. Especially if she ate nothing.” Her voice rose a little, getting more urgent. “She didn’t wash her hands after touching the jewelry?”

  “No. She went straight back into court. I don’t imagine at that point she would think of such a thing … still less of a taste.”

  “I don’t think it tastes unpleasant,” she answered. “Children sometimes eat the fruit by mistake.”

  “Does it kill them?” he asked.

  “Yes, it does, usually. And this would be concentrated.”

  “Where would she have got it?” He tried to keep the sense of victory out of his voice, but it was there in spite of him.

  “An herbalist, or even distill it herself,” she replied, not taking her eyes from his.

  “There won’t be berries this time of the year.”

  “You don’t need the berries. Any part of it is poisonous … berries, flowers, roots, leaves, anything at all!”

  Monk clenched his fist. “That’s it! That’s how she did it! By God, she’s clever! Now, how can we prove it?” He sat back on the chair. He was warm at last, and very comfortable in Gabriel’s shirt and trousers. He felt elated. He knew the truth! And Keelin Melville had not killed herself. She had not died in drowning despair, surrendering. It had not even been directly his, or Rathbone’s, failure which had been responsible.

  “Is she buried yet?” Hester asked. “Perhaps if they haven’t washed her hands … under the nails …”

  “Yes,” he answered before she finished. “They buried her.” The words hurt. “As a suicide … in unhallowed ground. Even Wolff was not permitted to be there.”

  “God won’t care,” she said with unwavering conviction. “But without her hands to look at … what about the suit she wore? Do you think we could see that? Or did they bury her in it?” There was finality in her voice, as if she expected the answer even before he gave it.