Defend and Betray

by Anne Perry

  “Not like Sabella?”

  His face shadowed. “No—no, I am afraid Sabella was one of those few who suffer profoundly. No one knows why it happens, but occasionally a woman will have a difficult time carrying a child, during confinement, or afterwards. Sabella was quite well right up until the last week. Her confinement was long and extremely painful. At one time I was fearful lest we lose her.”

  “Her mother would be most distressed.”

  “Of course. But then death in childbirth is quite common, Mr. Monk. It is a risk all women take, and they are aware of it.”

  “Was that why Sabella did not wish to marry?”

  Hargrave looked surprised. “Not that I know of. I believe she genuinely wished to devote her life to the Church.” Again he raised his shoulders very slightly. “It is not unknown among girls of a certain age. Usually they grow out of it. It is a sort of romance, an escape for a young and overheated imagination. Some simply fall in love with an ideal of man, a figure from literature or whatever, some with the most ideal of all—the Son of God. And after all”—he smiled with a gentle amusement touched only fractionally with bitterness—“it is the one love which can never fall short of our dreams, never disillusion us, because it lies in illusion anyway.” He sighed. “No, forgive me, that is not quite right. I mean it is mystical, its fulfillment does not rest with any real person but in the mind of the lover.”

  “And after the confinement and the birth of her child?” Monk prompted.

  “Oh—yes, I’m afraid she suffered a melancholia that occasionally occurs at such times. She became quite deranged, did not want her child, repelled any comfort or offer of help, any friendship; indeed any company except that of her mother.” He spread his hands expressively. “But it passed. These things do. Sometimes they take several years, but usually it is only a matter of a month or two, or at most four or five.”

  “There was no question of her being incarcerated as insane?”

  “No!” Hargrave was startled. “None at all. Her husband was very patient, and they had a wet nurse for the child. Why?”

  Monk sighed. “It was a possibility.”

  “Alexandra? Don’t see how. What are you looking for, Mr. Monk? What is it you hope to find? If I knew, perhaps I could save your time, and tell you if it exists at all.”

  “I don’t know myself,” Monk confessed. Also he did not wish to confide in Hargrave, or anyone else, because the whole idea involved some other person who was a threat to Alexandra. And who better than her doctor, who must know so many intimate things?

  “What about the general?” he said aloud. “He is dead and cannot care who knows about him, and his medical history may contain some answer as to why he was killed.”

  Hargrave frowned. “I cannot think what. It is very ordinary indeed. Of course I did not attend him for the various injuries he received in action.” He smiled. “In fact I think the only time I attended him at all was for a cut he received on his upper leg—a rather foolish accident.”

  “Oh? It must have been severe for him to send for you.”

  “Yes, it was a very nasty gash, ragged and quite deep. It was necessary to clean it, stop the bleeding with packs, then to stitch it closed. I went back several times to make quite sure it healed properly, without infection.”

  “How did it happen?” A wild thought occurred to Monk that it might have been a previous attack by Alexandra, which the general had warded off, sustaining only a thigh injury.

  A look of puzzlement crossed Hargrave’s face.

  “He said he had been cleaning an ornamental weapon, an Indian knife he had brought home as a souvenir, and taken it to give to young Valentine Furnival. It had stuck in its scabbard, and in forcing it out it slipped from his grasp and gashed him on the leg. He was attempting to clean it, or something of the sort.”

  “Valentine Furnival? Was Valentine visiting him?”

  “No—no, it happened at the Furnivals’ house. I was sent there.”

  “Did you see the weapon?” Monk asked.

  “No—I didn’t bother. He assured me the blade itself was clean, and that since it was such a dangerous thing he had disposed of it. I saw no reason to pursue it, because even in the unlikely event it was not self-inflicted, but a domestic quarrel, it was none of my affair, so long as he did not ask me to interfere. And he never did. In fact he did not mention it again as long as I knew him.” He smiled slightly. “If you are thinking it was Alexandra, I must say I think you are mistaken, but even if so, he forgave her for it. And nothing like it ever occurred again.”

  “Alexandra was at the Furnivals’ house?”

  “I’ve no idea. I didn’t see her.”

  “I see. Thank you, Dr. Hargrave.”

  And although he stayed another forty-five minutes, Monk learned nothing else that was of use to him. In fact he could find no thread to follow that might lead him to the reason why Alexandra had killed her husband, and still less why she should remain silent rather than admit it, even to him.

  He left in the late afternoon, disappointed and puzzled.

  He must ask Rathbone to arrange for him to see the woman again, but while that was in hand, he would go back to her daughter, Sabella Pole. The answer as to why Alexandra had killed her husband must lie somewhere in her nature, or in her circumstances. The only course that he could see left to him was to learn still more about her.

  Accordingly, eleven o’clock in the morning saw him at Fenton Pole’s house in Albany Street, again knocking on the door and requesting to see Mrs. Pole, if she would receive him, and handing the maid his card.

  He had chosen his time carefully. Fenton Pole was out on business, and as he had hoped, Sabella received him eagerly. As soon as he came into the morning room where she was she rose from the green sofa and came towards him, her eyes wide and hopeful, her hair framing her face with its soft, fair curls. Her skirts were very wide, the crinoline hoops settling themselves straight as she rose and the taffeta rustling against itself with a soft, whispering sound.

  Without any warning he felt a stab of memory that erased his present surroundings of conventional green and placed him in a gaslit room with mirrors reflecting a chandelier, and a woman talking. But before he could focus on anything it was gone, leaving nothing behind but confusion, a sense of being in two places at once, and a desperate need to recapture it and grasp the whole of it.

  “Mr. Monk,” Sabella said hastily. “I am so glad you came again. I was afraid after my husband was so abrupt to you that you would not return. How is Mama? Have you seen her? Can you help? No one will tell me anything, and I am going nearly frantic with fear for her.”

  The sunlight in the bright room seemed unreal, as if he were detached from it and seeing it in a reflection rather than reality. His mind was struggling after gaslight, dim corners and brilliant splinters of light on crystal.

  Sabella stood in front of him, her lovely oval face strained and her eyes full of anxiety. He must pull his wits together and give her his attention. Every decency demanded it. What had she said? Concentrate!

  “I have requested permission to see her again as soon as possible, Mrs. Pole,” he replied, his words sounding far away. “As to whether I can help, I am afraid I don’t know yet. So far I have learned little that seems of any use.”

  She closed her eyes as if the pain were physical, and stepped back from him.

  “I need to know more about her,” he went on, memory abandoned for the moment. “Please, Mrs. Pole, if you can help me, do so. She will not tell us anything, except that she killed him. She will not tell us any reason but the one we know is not true. I have searched for any evidence of another cause, and I can find none. It must be in her nature, or in your father’s. Or in some event which as yet we know nothing of. Please—tell me about them!”

  She opened her eyes and stared at him; slowly a little of the color came back into her face.

  “What sort of thing do you wish to know, Mr. Monk? I will tell you anything I
can. Just ask me—instruct me!” She sat down and waved to a seat for him.

  He obeyed, sinking into the deep upholstery and finding it more comfortable than he had expected.

  “It may be painful,” he warned. “If it distresses you please say so. I do not wish to make you ill.” He was gentler with her than he had expected to be, or was his habit. Perhaps it was because she was too concerned with her mother to think of being afraid of him for herself. Fear brought out a pursuing instinct in him, a kind of anger because he thought it was unwarranted. He admired courage.

  “Mr. Monk, my mother’s life is in jeopardy,” she replied with a very direct gaze. “I do not think a little distress is beyond my bearing.”

  He smiled at her for the first time, a quick, generous gesture that came quite spontaneously.

  “Thank you. Did you ever hear your parents quarreling, say, in the last two or three years?”

  She smiled back at him, only a ghost, and then was gone.

  “I have tried to think of that myself,” she said seriously. “And I am afraid I have not. Papa was not the sort of man to quarrel. He was a general, you know. Generals don’t quarrel.” She pulled a little face. “I suppose that is because the only person who would dare to quarrel with a general would be another general, and you so seldom get two in any one place. There is presumably a whole army between one general and the next.”

  She was watching his face. “Except in the Crimea, so I hear. And then of course they did quarrel—and the results were catastrophic. At least that is what Maxim Furnival says, although everybody else denies it and says our men were fearfully brave and the generals were all very clever. But I believe Maxim …”

  “So do I,” he agreed. “I believe some were clever, most were brave enough, but far too many were disastrously ignorant and inexcusably stupid!”

  “Oh do you think so?” The fleeting smile crossed her face again. “Not many people will dare to say that generals are stupid, especially so close to a war. But my father was a general, and so I know how they can be. They know some things, but others they have no idea of at all, the most ordinary things about people. Half the people in the world are women, you know?” She said it as if the fact surprised even herself.

  He found himself liking her. “Was your father like that?” he asked, not only because it mattered, but because he was interested.

  “Very much.” She lifted her head and pushed back a stray strand of hair. The gesture was startlingly familiar to him, bringing back not a sight or a sound, but an emotion of tenderness rare and startling to him, and a longing to protect her as if she were a vulnerable child; and yet he knew beyond question that the urgency he felt was not that which he might have towards any child, but only towards a woman.

  But which woman? What had happened between them, and why did he not know her now? Was she dead? Had he failed to protect her, as he had failed with the Walbrooks? Or had they quarreled over something; had he been too precipitate with his feelings? Did she love someone else?

  If only he knew more of himself, he might know the answer to that. All he had learned up until now showed him that he was not a gentle man, not used to bridling his tongue to protect other people’s feelings, or to stifling his own wants, needs, or opinions. He could be cruel with words. Too many cautious and bruised inferiors had borne witness to that. He recalled with increasing discomfort the wariness with which they had greeted him when he returned from the hospital after the accident. They admired him, certainly, respected his professional ability and judgment, his honesty, skill, dedication and courage. But they were also afraid of him—and not only if they were lax in duty or less than honest, but even if they were in the right. Which meant that a number of times he must have been unjust, his sarcastic wit directed against the weak as well as the strong. It was not a pleasant knowledge to live with.

  “Tell me about him.” He looked at Sabella. “Tell me about his nature, his interests, what you liked best about him, and what you disliked.”

  “Liked best about him?” She concentrated hard. “I think I liked …”

  He was not listening to her. The woman he had loved—yes, loved was the word—why had he not married her? Had she refused him? But if he had cared so much, why could he not now even recall her face, her name, anything about her beyond these sharp and confusing flashes?

  Or had she been guilty of the crime after all? Was that why he had tried to expunge her from his mind? And she returned now only because he had forgotten the circumstances, the guilt, the dreadful end of the affair? Could he have been so mistaken in his judgment? Surely not. It was his profession to detect truth from lies—he could not have been such a fool!

  “… and I liked the way he always spoke gently,” Sabella was saying. “I can’t recall that I ever heard him shout, or use language unbecoming for us to hear. He had a lovely voice.” She was looking up at the ceiling, her face softer, the anger gone from it, which he had only dimly registered when she must have been speaking of some of the things she disliked in her father. “He used to read to us from the Bible—the Book of Isaiah especially,” she went on. “I don’t remember what he said, but I loved listening to him because his voice wrapped all ’round us and made it all seem important and good.”

  “And your greatest dislike?” he prompted, hoping she had not already specified it when he was not listening.

  “I think the way he would withdraw into himself and not even seem to notice that I was there—sometimes for days,” she replied without hesitation. Then a look of sorrow came into her eyes, and a self-conscious pain. “And he never laughed with me, as if—as if he were not altogether comfortable in my company.” Her fair brows puckered as she concentrated on Monk. “Do you know what I mean?”

  Then as quickly she looked away. “I’m sorry, that is a foolish question, and embarrassing. I fear I am being no help at all—and I wish I could.” This last was said with such intense feeling that Monk ached to be able to reach across the bright space between them and touch her slender wrist, to assure her with some more immediate warmth than words, that he did understand. But to do so would be intrusive, and open to all manner of misconstruction. All he could think of was to continue with questions that might lead to some fragment of useful knowledge. He did not often feel so awkward.

  “I believe he had been friends with Mr. and Mrs. Furnival for a long time?”

  She looked up, recalling herself to the matter in hand and putting away memory and thought of her own wounds.

  “Yes—about sixteen or seventeen years, I think, something like that. They had been much closer over the last seven or eight years. I believe he used to visit them once or twice a week when he was at home.” She looked at him with a slight frown. “But he was friends with both of them, you know. It would be easy to believe he was having an affair with Louisa—I mean easy as far as his death is concerned, but I really do not think he was. Maxim was very fond of Mama, you know? Sometimes I used to think—but that is another thing, and of no use to us now.

  “Maxim is in the business of dealing in foodstuffs, you know, and Papa put a very great deal of army contracts his way. A cavalry regiment can use a marvelous amount of corn, hay, oats and so on. I think he also was an agent for saddlery and other things of that sort. I don’t know the details, but I know Maxim profited greatly because of it, and has become a very respected power in the trade, among his fellows. I think he must be very good at it.”

  “Indeed.” Monk turned it over in his mind; it was an interesting piece of information, but he could not see how it was of any use to Alexandra Carlyon. It did not sound in any way corrupt; presumably a general might suggest to his quartermaster that he obtain his stores from one merchant rather than another, if the price were fair. But even had it not been, why should that cause Alexandra any anger or distress—still less drive her to murder?

  But it was another thread leading back to the Furnivals.

  “Do you remember the incident where your father was stabbe
d with the ornamental knife? It happened at the Furnivals’ house. It was quite a deep injury.”

  “He wasn’t stabbed,” she said with a tiny smile. “He slipped and did it himself. He was cleaning the knife, or something. I can’t imagine why. It wasn’t even used.”

  “But you remember it?”

  “Yes of course. Poor Valentine was terribly upset. I think he saw it happen. He was only about eleven or twelve, poor child.”

  “Was your mother there?”

  “At the Furnivals’? Yes, I think so. I really don’t remember. Louisa was there. She sent for Dr. Hargrave to come immediately because it was bleeding pretty badly. They had to put a lot of bandages on it, and he could barely get his trousers back on, even with Maxim’s valet to help him. When he came down the stairs, assisted by the valet and the footman, I could see the great bulges under the cloth of his trousers. He looked awfully pale and he went straight home in the carriage.”

  Monk tried to visualize it. A clumsy accident. But was it relevant? Could it conceivably have been an earlier attempt to kill him? Surely not—not in the Furnivals’ house and so long ago. But why not in the Furnivals’ house? She had finally killed him there. But why no attempt between then and now?

  Sabella had said she saw the swell of the bandages under his trousers. Not the bloodstained tear where the knife had gone through! Was it possible Alexandra had found him in bed with Louisa and taken the knife to him in a fit of jealous rage? And they had conspired to conceal it—and the scandal? There was no point in asking Sabella. She would naturally deny it, to protect her mother.

  He stayed a further half hour, drawing from her memories of her parents, some quite varied, but not showing him anything he had not already learned from his talk with the servants in Alexandra’s own home. She and the general had been reasonably content in their relationship. It was cool but not intolerable. He had not abused her in any way, he had been generous, even-tempered, and had no apparent vices; he was simply an unemotional man who preferred his own interests and his own company. Surely that was the position of many married women, and nothing to warrant serious complaint, let alone violence.