by Anne Perry
Henry was looking at him, his eyes sad and anxious.
Rathbone forced himself to smother his own fear. He, of all people, had the least justification for self-pity. He had to act with courage.
“I’ll speak to Monk,” he said, his voice perfectly level. “I know he’s not a private agent of inquiry anymore, but he’ll know what to do. And I think Brancaster’s a good man. Thank you for finding him.”
Henry accepted that that was the end of the conversation and deliberately he spoke of other things until it was time to leave. He did not ask again if Rathbone would like to stay at Primrose Hill.
When Henry had gone the house seemed oppressively quiet. The servants were conspicuously keeping out of his way. Probably they were embarrassed. What did one say to a master who was out of prison on bail for a crime you did not understand?
What should he say to them? It was his responsibility to broach the subject, and at the very least tell them what was happening and what prospects they had of remaining in his employ. He owed them that.
If he received any jail sentence at all, he would have to sell the house. What would he need it for, anyway? On his release he would hardly come back here. It was too big, far too expensive, and he ought to admit it, he would have no use for a residence in the middle of one of the best areas of London.
He was alone. If he could afford any servant, then one gentleman’s gentleman could do it all. Perhaps he could hire a woman to come in and do the laundry and the scrubbing of floors.
Perhaps he wouldn’t even be able to manage that, to begin with. He could very well end up in lodgings, renting one room. Why not? Thousands of people did. That is what Monk had been doing when they first met. It was a long fall from a house like this, with half a dozen servants, to being glad to rent one room and share conveniences. But then it was a long fall from being a judge at the Old Bailey to being an unemployed ex-convict.
It was different from this side of the picture, very different indeed. How simple it is when the victim is somebody else. Justice is so easy from the blind end, nicely cushioned from everything except the knowledge of an uninvolved conscience. I didn’t cause it. This is the law, and I am not responsible. Now let me go home, forget it, and have a decent dinner and perhaps a glass of port afterward.
He forced himself to smile, wry amusement only, no pleasure.
Even if he were found not guilty, much of the result would be the same. His career on the bench would be over. He realized with a deep ache that whatever the law, whatever rabbit Brancaster might pull out of his hat, morally Rathbone had made a very flawed judgment. He was a good lawyer, even brilliant. He had been called the best in London, and possibly he was, or had been. But that was fighting for a cause, even crusading, requiring all his passion and will and intelligence to be channeled to one side. No judgment was required.
If he looked back at it now, he knew perfectly well that he had made up his mind from the beginning that Taft was guilty, not only legally but even more so, morally. He had considered Drew a cruel man even before he held the picture, and wasn’t going to stand for him destroying other, naïve people from the stand and then walking away without censure.
He was not cool enough to be a good judge, certainly not dispassionate enough. He loved the battle, but did he love the law, above and beyond all else, separated from the human cost and turmoil?
No—perhaps not. And that was what a judge needed to do. A judge should not be partisan, as he was, as it seemed he could not help being.
That would amuse Hester, in a bitter way. She had always thought he was too remote, too controlled. Would she like him better this way?
He would probably never know what she truly thought about any of this because she was too loyal to tell him completely. She would not lie to him, or probably for him, but she would never purposefully hurt him, especially when he was in trouble and alone.
When they all first met she had not known if Monk was guilty of having beaten Joscelyn Grey to death. Reason and evidence said that he was. He even thought he was guilty himself, but the blow to his head in the accident had left him without memory to know the truth. Even now, all these years later, he still knew what happened only from the evidence. Flashes of memory returned, but without connection. There was no narrative of his life.
But Hester had stood by him, even though she did not know, any more than Monk himself did. What would have happened if he had been guilty? It was only a guess, deep-rooted in feeling rather than reason, but he believed she would have stayed loyal to Monk and expected him to pay the price, like a man, and then resume what was left of his life afterward.
Is that what she would expect of Rathbone also? Probably. It had to do with who she was, not with him.
Monk, had he been guilty, would have been guilty of getting rid of a blackmailer who destroyed the families of dead soldiers. Ballinger had dealt in the abuse and pornography of children, in blackmail and ultimately in murder. There was nothing whatever to indicate that he had done it with the slightest regret. He had seen a weakness and exploited it. Rathbone was not sorry the man was gone.
But what about Margaret? He was her father, and she had loved him unconditionally. Where there was doubt, she convinced herself it was because everyone else was wrong. She had turned all her rage and grief against Rathbone, and never once allowed that he had done his best. But Ballinger had been guilty, and no one could have proved otherwise.
And he couldn’t blame her. He doubted he would believe anyone on earth if they had accused Henry of something so vile.
He stood at the window again, looking out at the garden. It was only just over a week since he had last studied it like this. Already it seemed changed. The marigolds were fading. The asters were deeper purple. Patches of the Virginia creeper were turning dark crimson. One hard wind and the first of the leaves would begin to fall. Things were dying.
Rathbone wondered whether Beata York would be loyal to Ingram, if he were to find himself in trouble, accused, maligned, perhaps even charged. He did not understand why he kept thinking of her, but he couldn’t help it. Almost certainly they would never meet again. Pass on the street, perhaps, but not meet as equals, even less as friends. That was another price to pay.
He was still thinking of that when Ardmore, the butler, came to tell him that Monk and Hester were here to see him.
Suddenly his spirits lifted. Some of the tension eased out of his body, and he realized with surprise and some shame that he had feared they would wish to avoid him. Monk had been to visit him in prison, but what did Hester feel?
One glance at her face answered his anxieties. She might be angry, worried, confused as to what to do, but she had not changed. She was a fixed star in a world turned upside down. Friendship was at the core of every relationship that mattered—allies, parent and child, lovers. On its foundation could be built all the other palaces of the heart.
They sat down and began to weigh the situation and consider what could be done. Rathbone repeated all the points Henry had made, and they spoke of other concerns as well, including the death of Taft.
“There’s a great deal we don’t know about that,” Monk observed. “Even if he had been found guilty, the punishment would have been prison, but not for life. He could even have begun again, changed his name and gone somewhere he wasn’t known. For heaven’s sake, the whole world was open to him.”
“That point aside, how could he kill his wife and daughters?” Hester’s face puckered with distress. “It’s … not sane. I think he was suffering some sort of madness.” She looked from Monk to Rathbone and back again. “He just seemed pompous to me, and revoltingly self-satisfied. If he believed anything of what he preached, he wouldn’t kill his family, whatever happened to him.”
“If he believed what he preached he wouldn’t have stolen the money in the first place,” Monk said tartly. “But you’re right, there is something missing from the facts. I need to know a great deal more about him.”
“
Do you think it will make any difference to my blame, in the law?” Rathbone asked unhappily. “I can’t see how it would, much as I would like to think so.”
“I don’t know,” Monk admitted. “But the reason he killed himself has to be part of the case, and it cannot be coincidence that it was immediately after Drew was exposed. I’ll keep looking.”
Rathbone nodded, and the conversation moved on to other areas.
Even late in the afternoon, after they had left, some of the warmth Rathbone had felt seemed to linger. Then Ardmore was at the door again, his face as carefully blank as he could make it.
“Lady Rathbone has called, sir. What do you wish me to say?”
How diplomatically phrased. Even while his heart raced and all his muscles knotted up, Rathbone’s mind admired Ardmore’s grasp of tact, his delicacy of feeling. There was no choice but to see her. It would be childish to refuse.
What did she want? Was it even imaginable she had come out of some kind of loyalty, a remnant of the closeness they had once had? He had thought they had loved each other, but the first real test in their marriage had ripped them apart.
If the tragedy of Ballinger had not happened, would they have lived out the rest of their lives imagining they were happy, never enjoying anything deeper than superficial affection?
Ardmore was still waiting.
“Please ask her to come in,” Rathbone replied. “And … and ask her what she would like as refreshment.”
“Yes, sir.” Ardmore bowed, still expressionless, and went out.
A moment later Margaret came in. She was still dressed in black, with only the relief of a pale fichu at the neck and a cameo brooch. He remembered her telling him that it had been a gift from her father for her eighteenth birthday. She looked like a grieving widow. It was irrelevant, but he wondered if she wore black all the time, or if this was to make the point to him that she still felt totally bereaved, of husband as well as father.
She looked as handsome as he had ever seen her. There was fire in her blue eyes and a faint flush to her skin.
“Good evening, Oliver,” she said, stopping a good yard and a half away from him. “I suppose it would be foolish to say that I hope you are well, and I think we are long beyond the point where politeness would be anything less than a farce. You can’t be well, in the circumstances. Prison is extremely unpleasant, as it is intended to be.” She raised her delicate eyebrows slightly. “Not that you have acquired a prison pallor yet. I imagine it will come, when they have found you guilty. From the advice I have received, that seems to be inevitable.”
He was surprised by this remark. “You sought advice on the subject? From whom?”
“My lawyer, of course. To whom else would I take such a matter?”
“I don’t know why you should take it to anyone.” His mind raced, trying to think why she had come at all. There was nothing gentle in her, nothing anxious or concerned. It seemed impossible that they had once made love, lain in each other’s arms.
She stood ramrod stiff, her shoulders square, her chin high. He looked at her. At first glance, he thought anger became her. It gave her a vitality, even a passion she did not normally have. Only when he looked more closely did he see a hardness in her, an absence of the warmth he used to see. There was a probing edge to her gaze, a searching for the place most vulnerable to drive the blade home.
He waited for her to explain her purpose.
“It will be a very public trial,” she went on. “Just as my father’s trial was. Perhaps even more so. It is spectacular, as justice goes, that a judge should answer for himself in court. An irony, don’t you think?” She did not wait for his answer. “What you are accused of is despicable because apart from anything else, it is a betrayal of the profession that has given you all you have … in fact, all that you are. If we cannot trust judges, then what is the law itself worth? You have damaged anyone who ever trusted you.”
He drew in his breath to try to explain, but the fury in her eyes made him realize the futility of that. The hope that she might have come in any manner of kindness faded away. He was foolish to have entertained it in the first place. The whole world had altered for him, erupted and caved in on itself. How he must be an embarrassment to her, even an encumbrance.
When Ballinger had been tried her world had been destroyed. Rathbone’s had not. It had hurt, certainly. He had been confused, desperate to find some defense for him, torn between loyalty to Margaret and loyalty to his own duty and beliefs. When it all ended he had been left with a sense of loss, but he was still whole. It was she who had suffered a permanent injury.
Now the tables were turned. This time she would lose very little, actually perhaps nothing at all. He was legally bound to look after her financially, and he would have done it whether the law required it of him or not. But she would not accept anything from him. She would rather live in near poverty with her mother than take his money. If he were sent to prison and therefore had nothing, she would not lose.
Then why had she come? Not to assuage his anxiety for her, but to rejoice in his downfall.
Margaret was regarding him now with contempt, waiting for him to find his tongue.
“Nothing to say, Oliver?” she asked finally. “Did you not know before what it feels like to be accused, unable to prove your innocence and having to depend on someone else to do it for you? Suddenly you’re helpless too. Now you know how your clients felt, their fear, and why they trusted you. They did so because they were desperate, terrified, and had nowhere else to turn.” She smiled tightly. “To you the law is a way to show off your skills, to win publicly, and of course to make money. To them it’s survival or death. It looks a little different from the side you’re on now, doesn’t it?”
She was being unfair. He had taken every case seriously and given every single one his all, even when in the end he lost, as he had with Ballinger.
“I can give a defense, Margaret,” he said with as much self-control as he could. His voice sounded rasping. “Sometimes I can prove a man innocent, sometimes I can mitigate a sentence. I cannot save a guilty man. Are you suggesting that I should? If everyone is to be set free at the end, regardless, why bother with a trial?”
“So that the lawyer can strut around, show off, and earn money, of course!” she snapped. “And the public can have its entertainment.” Then she waved her hand sharply, as if she could brush the subject out of the way. “But you are guilty, aren’t you? Or are you going to say that it was not you who gave obscene pictures to Warne so that Drew would be destroyed as a witness?” The look of disbelief on her face was savage.
“You think the picture should be suppressed, and the jury have no idea what kind of a man Drew is”—he put all his incredulity and contempt into his voice—“so he can go on slandering the other members of the congregation and be believed?”
Her temper snapped. “Don’t answer every question with another question, Oliver! For the love of heaven, be honest for once!”
He felt as if he had been slapped. He knew the color burned up his face. “That is honest, Margaret. I gave Warne the picture so he had a choice of defending the ordinary, trusting men and women whom Drew was slandering and holding up to public mockery. They deserved that.”
“You hypocrite!” Her voice was very nearly a shout, her face dark with fury. “You can introduce that filthy photograph into the courtroom and sit there full of righteous indignation as if you knew nothing about it. I’m glad they found out that it was you who gave it to Warne. You can’t hide anymore. Everyone will know you for what you are.”
The lash of her tongue hurt so sharply that for a moment he could hardly draw breath to defend himself.
She mistook his silence for weakness. “I wish my father were alive to see this,” she went on, choking a little on her own words. “It would be perfect. Well, at least I am here. And believe me, I will watch with pleasure.”
“I’m sure your father’s appreciation would be the sharpest of all,” he sa
id bitterly. “That is why he had the pictures in the first place, to bring about justice that could be forced no other way. I understood that in him—obviously far more than you did, or do even now.”
She froze, her face white. “Liar! How dare you suggest such a thing to me? Is that your defense? To blame a dead man you have made sure cannot speak for himself? Well, I can speak for him, and I will. The world will see you for what you are—a man who places pride and opportunism before everything else: before family or honor, or even human decency.”
He struggled for something to say that would put them back on common ground, some shared belief. They had cared for each other once.
She was not prepared to wait for him.
“I will not discuss my father with you. For you to suggest you are alike in anything is an insult to him, and I won’t listen. I came to tell you that I am consulting a lawyer—a friend of my father’s, who still has some regard toward the family—because I do not wish to remain connected to you in any way, least of all in the public mind. I don’t think it will be difficult, in the circumstances you have created, for me to obtain a divorce. I will revert to my maiden name. I no longer wish to be known as Margaret Rathbone. I imagine you can understand that, but if you don’t it really doesn’t matter to me. I am informing you simply as a matter of courtesy.”
He should have been expecting it. It was the perfect opportunity for her to set herself free. She did not have to accuse him of anything, not that there were many excuses for a woman to divorce her husband. She could not claim infidelity, as a man could against his wife. But society would never blame her if she did not want to be associated with him when he was standing trial for perverting the course of justice.
Perhaps some would have admired her loyalty had she remained with him. He thought of other women he had known who had risked everything they possessed, even their lives, to prove the innocence of the husbands they loved. But then the key to that loyalty was their love.