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He pulled a bell rope and a young officer appeared and snapped to attention.
“Payton, will you convey my compliments to Colonel Sidgewick and ask him if at any time around the end of November last year the widow of Captain Harry Haslett called upon his office. It is a matter of considerable importance, con
cerning both honor and life, and I would be most obliged if he would give me an answer of exactness as soon as may be possible. This lady, who is one of Miss Nightingale’s nurses, is waiting upon the answer.”
“Sir!” The junior snapped to attention once again, turned on his heel and departed.
While he was gone Major Tallis apologized for requiring Hester to spend her time in the waiting room, but he had other business obligations which he must discharge. She understood and assured him it was precisely what she expected and was perfectly content. She would write letters and otherwise occupy herself.
It was not long, a matter of fifteen or twenty minutes, before the door opened and the lieutenant returned. As soon as he left, Major Tallis called Hester in. His face was white, his eyes full of anxiety and fearful pity.
“You were perfectly correct,” he said very quietly. “Octavia Haslett was here on the afternoon of her death, and she spoke with Colonel Sidgewick. She learned from him exactly what you learned from me, and from her words and expression on hearing, it appears she drew the same conclusions. I am most profoundly grieved, and I feel guilty—I am not sure for what. Perhaps that the whole matter occurred, and no one did anything to prevent it. Truly, Miss Latterly, I am deeply sorry.”
“Thank you—thank you, Major Tallis.” She forced a sickly smile, her mind whirling. “I am most grateful to you.”
“What are you going to do?” he said urgently.
“I don’t know. I’m not sure what I can do. I shall consult with the police officer on the case; I think that would be wisest.”
“Please do, Miss Latterly—please be most careful. I—”
“I know,” she said quickly. “I have learned much in confidence. Your name will not be mentioned, I give you my word. Now I must go. Thank you again.” And without waiting for him to add anything further, she turned and left, almost running down the long corridor and making three wrong turnings before she finally came to the exit.
She found Monk at some inconvenience, and was obliged to wait at his lodgings until after dark, when he returned home. He was startled to see her.
“Hester! What has happened? You look fearful.”
“Thank you,” she said acidly, but she was too full of her news to carry even an irritation for more than an instant. “I have just been to the War Office—at least I was this afternoon. I have been waiting here for you interminably—”
“The War Office.” He took off his wet hat and overcoat, the rain falling from them in a little puddle on the floor. “From your expression I assume you learned something of interest?”
Only hesitating to draw breath when it was strictly necessary, she told him everything she had learned from Septimus, then all that had been said from the instant of entering Major Tallis’s office.
“If that was where Octavia had been on the afternoon of her death,” she said urgently, “if she learned what I did today, then she must have gone back to Queen Anne Street believing that her father had deliberately contrived her husband’s promotion and transfer from what was a fine middle-order regiment to Lord Cardigan’s Light Brigade, where he would be honor- and duty-bound to lead a charge in which casualties would be murderous.” She refused to visualize it, but it crowded close at the back of her mind. “Cardigan’s reputation is well known. Many would be bound to die in the first onslaught itself, but even of those who survived it, many would be so seriously wounded the field surgeons could do little to help them. They’d be transferred piled one upon another in open carts to the hospital in Scutari, and there they’d face a long convalescence where gangrene, typhus, cholera and other fevers killed even more than the sword or the cannon had.”
He did not interrupt her.
“Once he was promoted,” she went on, “his chances of glory, which he did not want, were very slight; his chances of death, quick or slow, were appallingly high.
“If Octavia did learn this, no wonder she went home ashen-faced and did not speak at dinner. Previously she thought it fate and the chances of war which bereaved her of the husband she loved so deeply and left her a dependent widow in her father’s house, without escape.” She shivered. “Trapped even more surely than before.”
Monk agreed tacitly, allowing her to go on uninterrupted.
“Now she discovered it was not a blind misfortune which had taken everything from her.” She leaned forward. “But a deliberate betrayal, and she was imprisoned with her betrayer, day after day, for as far as she could see into a gray future.
“Then what did she do? Perhaps when everyone else was asleep, she went to her father’s study and searched his desk for letters, the communication which would prove beyond doubt the terrible truth.” She stopped.
“Yes,” he said very slowly. “Yes—then what? Basil purchased Harry’s commission, and then when he proved a fine officer, prevailed upon his friends and purchased him a higher commission in a gallant and reckless regiment. In whose eyes would that be more than a very understandable piece of favor seeking?”
“No one’s,” she answered bitterly. “He would protest innocence. How could he know Harry Haslett would lead in the charge and fall?”
“Exactly,” he said quickly. “These are the fortunes of war. If you marry a soldier, it is the chance you take—all women do. He would say he grieved for her, but she was wickedly ungrateful to charge him with culpability in it all. Perhaps she had taken a little too much wine with dinner—a fault which she was apt to indulge rather often lately. I can imagine Basil’s face as he said it, and his expression of distaste.”
She looked at Monk urgently. “That would be useless. Octavia knew her father and was the only one who had ever had the courage to defy him—and reap his revenge.
“But what defiance was left her? She had no allies. Cyprian was content to remain a prisoner in Queen Anne Street. To an extent he had a hostage to fortune in Romola, who obeyed her own instinct for survival, which would never include disobeying Basil. Fenella was uninterested in anyone but herself, Araminta seemed to be on her father’s side in apparently everything. Myles Kellard was an additional problem, hardly a solution. And he too would never override Basil’s wishes; certainly he would not do it for someone else!”
“Lady Moidore?” he prompted.
