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He smiled. “Yes ma’am,” he conceded. “I am not really concerned with the glass. It can very easily be replaced. But Mrs. Penrose is a little alarmed at the thought of strangers wandering around. Miss Gillespie, her sister, is given to spending time in the summerhouse, and it is not pleasant to think that one might be being watched when one is unaware of it. Perhaps the concern is unnecessary, but it is there nonetheless.”
“A Peeping Tom. How very distasteful,” the old lady said, grasping the point instantly. “Yes, I can understand her pursuing the matter. A girl of spirit, Mrs. Penrose, but a very delicate constitution, I think. These fair-skinned girls sometimes are. It must be very hard for them all.”
Monk was puzzled; it seemed an overstatement. “Hard for them all?” he repeated.
“No children,” the old lady said, looking at him with her head a trifle on one side. “But you must be aware of that, young man?”
“Yes, yes of course I am. I had not thought of it in connection with her health.”
“Oh dear—isn’t that a man all over.” She made a little tut-tut noise. “Of course it is to do with her health. She has been married some eight or nine years. What else would it be? Poor Mr. Penrose puts a very good face on it, but he cannot help but feel it all the same. Another cross for her to bear, poor creature. Afflictions of health are among the worst.” She let out her breath in a little sigh. She regarded him closely with a slight squint of concentration. “Not that you would know, by the look of you. Well, I haven’t seen any Peeping Toms, but then I cannot see beyond the garden window anyway. My sight is going. Happens when you get to my age. Not that you’d know that either. Don’t suppose you are more than forty-five.”
Monk winced, but forbore from saying anything. He preferred to think he did not look anything like forty-five, but this was not the time for vanity, and this outspoken old lady was certainly not the person with whom to try anything so transparent.
“Well, you had better ask the outdoor servants,” she went on. “Mind you, that is only the gardener and sometimes the scullery maid, if she can escape the cook’s eye. Made it sound like a whole retinue, didn’t I? Ask them, by all means. Let me know if they tell you anything interesting. There’s little enough of interest ever happens here nowadays.”
He smiled. “The neighborhood is too quiet for you?”
She sighed. “I don’t get about as much as I used to, and nobody brings me the gossip. Perhaps there isn’t any.” Her eyes widened. “We’ve all become so terribly respectable these days. It’s the Queen. When I was a girl it was different.” She shook her head sadly. “We had a king then, of course. Wonderful days. I remember when they brought the news of Trafalgar. It was the greatest naval victory in Europe, you know.” She looked at Monk sharply to be sure he appreciated the i
mport of what she was saying. “It was a matter of England’s survival against the Emperor of the French, and yet the fleet came in with mourning flags flying, and in silence—because Nelson had fallen.” She gazed beyond Monk into the garden, her eyes misty with remembrance. “My father came into the room and my mother saw his face and we all stopped smiling. ‘What is it?’ she said immediately. ‘Are we defeated?’ My father had tears on his cheeks. It was the only time I ever saw him weep.”
Her face was alight with the wonder of it still, all the myriad lines subtly altered by the innocence and the emotions of youth.
“ ‘Nelson is dead,’ my father said very gravely. ‘Have we lost the war?’ my mother asked. ‘Shall we be invaded by Napoleon?’ ‘No,’ my father answered. ‘We won. The French fleet is all sunk. No one will land on England’s shores again.’ ” She stopped and stared up at Monk, watching to see if he caught the magnitude of it.
He met her eyes and she perceived that he had caught her vision.
“I danced all night before Waterloo,” she went on enthusiastically, and Monk imagined the colors, the music, and the swirling skirts she could still see in her mind. “I was in Brussels with my husband. I danced with the Iron Duke himself.” All the laughter vanished from her expression. “And then, of course, the next day there was the battle.” Her voice was suddenly husky and she blinked several times. “And all that night we heard news and more news of the dead. The war was over, the Emperor beaten forever. It was the greatest victory in Europe, but dear God, how many young men died! I don’t think I knew anyone who had not lost somebody, either dead or so injured as never to be the same again.”
Monk had seen the carnage left by the Crimean War and he knew what she meant; even though that conflict had been so much smaller, the spirit and the pain were the same. In a sense it was worse, because there was no perceivable purpose to it. England was under no threat, as it had been from Napoleon.
She saw the emotion and the anger in his face. Suddenly her own sorrow vanished. “And of course I knew Lord Byron,” she went on with sudden animation. “What a man! There was a poet for you. So handsome.” She gave a little laugh. “So beautifully romantic and dangerous. What wonderful scandal there was then. Such burning ideals, and men did something about them then.” She gave a little gasp of fury, her ancient hands clenched into fists on her lap. “And what have we today? Tennyson.”
She groaned and then looked at Monk with a sweet smile. “I suppose you want to see the gardener about your Peeping Tom? Well, you had better go and do so, with my blessing.”
He smiled back at her with genuine regard. It would have been much pleasanter to remain and listen to her reminiscences, but he had undertaken a duty.
He rose to his feet. “Thank you, ma’am. Courtesy compels me, or I should not leave so readily.”
“Ha! Very nicely said, young man.” She nodded. “I think from your face there is more to you than chasing trivia, but that is your affair. Good day to you.”
He bowed his head and took his leave of her. However, neither the gardener nor the scullery maid could tell him anything of use whatever. They had not seen any stranger in the area. There was no access to the garden of number fourteen except if someone chose to climb the wall, and the flower beds on either side had not been damaged or disturbed. A Peeping Tom, if indeed there had been such a person, must have come some other way.
The occupant of number twelve was of no assistance either. He was a fussy man with gray hair, which was sparse in front, and gold-rimmed eyeglasses. No, he had seen no one in the area who was not known to him and of excellent character. No, he had suffered no breakages in his cold frames. He was sorry, but he could be of no help, and since he was extremely busy, would Mr. Monk be so good as to excuse him.
The residents of the house whose garden abutted number fourteen at the end were considerably more lively. There were at least seven children whom Monk counted, three of them boys, so he abandoned the broken cold frames and returned to the Peeping Tom.
“Oh dear,” Mrs. Hylton said with a frown. “What a foolish thing. Men with too little to occupy themselves, no doubt. Everyone ought to be busy.” She poked a strand of hair back into its place and smoothed her skirts. “Keep themselves out of trouble. Miss Gillespie, you said? What a shame. Such a nice young lady. And her sister as well. Devoted, they are, which is so pleasant to see, don’t you think?” She waved Monk toward the window where he could have a good view of their garden, the wall dividing it from the Penroses’, but gave him no time to answer her rhetorical question. “And a very agreeable man, Mr. Penrose is too, I am sure.”
“Do you have a gardener, Mrs. Hylton?”
“A gardener?” She was obviously surprised. “Dear me, no. I am afraid the garden is rather left to its own devices, apart from my husband cutting the grass every so often.” She smiled happily. “Children, you know? I was afraid at first you were going to say someone had been too wild with the cricket ball and broken a window. You have no idea what a relief it was!”
“The action of a Peeping Tom does not frighten you, ma’am?”
“Oh dear no.” She looked at him narrowly. “I doubt if there really was one, you know. Miss Gillespie is very young. Young girls are given to fancies at times, and to nerves.” She smoothed her skirts again and rearranged the billowing fabric. “It comes of just sitting around waiting to meet a suitable young man, and hoping he will choose her above her fellows.” She took a deep breath. “Of course, she is very pretty, and that will help, but entirely dependent upon her brother-in-law to support her until then. And as I understand it, there is no dowry to mention. I shouldn’t be too concerned, if I were you, Mr. Monk. I expect it was a cat in the bushes, or some such thing.”
“I see,” Monk said thoughtfully, not that his mind was on any kind of animal, or Marianne’s possible imagination, but upon her financial dependence. “I daresay you are right,” he added quickly. “Thank you, Mrs. Hylton. I think I shall take your advice and abandon the pursuit. I wish you good day, ma’am.”
