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“You can do better than that,” Hester said without thinking, putting her hand on Dora’s great arm, and with a shock feeling the power of the rocklike muscle. She swallowed her fear. “You can get him hanged,” she urged. “That would be a much more exquisite death—and he would know it was you who did it. If you kill him, he will be a martyr. The world will think he was innocent, and you guilty. And you might hang! My way you’ll be a heroine—and he’ll be ruined!”
“ ’Ow?” Dora said simply.
“Tell me all you know.”
“They won’t believe me. Not against ’im!” Again the rage suffused her face. “Yer dreamin’. No—my way’s better. It’s sure. Yours ain’t.”
“It could be,” Hester insisted. “You must know something of value.”
“Like what? They in’t goin’ ter believe me. I’m nobody.” There was a wealth of bitterness in her last words, as if all the abyss of worthlessness had conquered her and she saw the light fading out of her reach with utter certainty.
“What about all the patients?” Hester said desperately. “How did they know to come to him? It isn’t something he would tell people.”
“ ’Course not! But I dunno ’oo got ’em fer ’im.”
“Are you sure? Think hard! Maybe you saw something or heard something. How long has he been doing it?”
“Oh, years! Ever since ’e did it for Lady Ross Gilbert. She were the first.” Her face lit with sudden, harsh amusement, as if she had not even heard Hester’s sudden, indrawn breath. “What a thing that were. She were well on—five months or more, and in such a state—beside herself she were. She’d just come back in a boat from the Indies—that would be why she was so far gorn.” She let out a low rumble of laughter, her face twisted in a sneer of contempt. “Black, it were—poor little sod! I saw it plain—like a real baby. Arms an’ legs an’ ’ead an’ all.” Tears filled her eyes and her face was soft and sad with memory. “Fair made me sick to see it took away like that. But black as yer ’at it’d ’ave been. No wonder she din’t want it! ’er ’usband’d ’ave turned her out, and all London’d ’ave thrown up their ’ands in ’orror in public—and laughed theirselves sick be’ind their doors arterwards.”
Hester too was amazed and sick and grieved for a helpless life, unwanted and disposed of before it began.
Without any explanation she knew Dora’s contempt was not that the child was black but that Berenice had got rid of it for that reason, and it was mixed with her sense of loss for what was so plainly a human being on the brink of form and life. Anger was the only way she knew to defuse the horror and the pity. She had no children herself, and probably never would have. What emotions must have racked her to see the growing infant, so nearly complete, and dispose of it like a tumor into the rubbish. For a few moments she and Dora shared a feeling as totally as if their paths through life had been matched step for step.
“But I dunno ’oo sends women to ’im,” Dora said angrily, breaking the mood. “Maybe if you can find some of them, they’ll tell yer, but don’t count on it! They in’t goin’ ter say anything.” Now she was twisted with anger again. “You put ’em in court an’ they’ll lie their ’eads off before they’ll admit they done such a thing. Poor women might not—but the rich ones will. Poor women’s afraid o’ ’avin more kids they can’t feed. Rich ones is afraid ’o the shame.”
Hester did not bother arguing that rich women could be just as physically exhausted by confinement after confinement. Every woman gives birth in the same way—all the money on earth cannot alter the work of the body, the pain or the dangers, the tearing, the bleeding, the risk of fever or blood poisoning. That surely is the one place where all women are equal. But this was not the time to say so.
“See what you can remember,” she argued. “I will reread all Prudence’s notes again, just in case there is anything else there.”
“You won’t get nowhere.” There were hopelessness back in Dora’s voice and in her face. “ ’E’ll get off—and I’ll kill ’im, the same as ’e killed ’er. I might ’ang fer it—but I’ll go gladly if I’m sure ’e’s in ’Ell too.” And with that she pushed her way past Hester, tears suddenly spilling over her eyes and coursing down her ugly face.
Monk was elated when Hester brought him her news. It was the solution. He knew precisely what to do. Without hesitation he went to Berenice Ross Gilbert’s home and commanded the reluctant footman to let him in. He accepted no protests as to the hour, which was approaching midnight. This was an emergency. It mattered not a jot that Lady Ross Gilbert had retired for the night. She must be awakened. Perhaps it was something in his bearing, an innate ruthlessness, but after only a moment’s hesitation the footman obeyed.
Monk waited in the withdrawing room, an elegant expensive room with French furniture, gilded wood, and brocade curtains. How much of it had been paid for by desperate women? He had no time even to look at it now. He stood in the center facing the double doors, waiting for her.
She threw them open and came in, smiling, dressed in a magnificent aquamarine robe which billowed around her. She looked like a medieval queen: all she lacked was a circlet over her long, bright hair.
“How perfectly extraordinary, Mr. Monk,” she said with complete composure. There was nothing but curiosity in her face. “What on earth can have happened that brings you here at this time of night? Do tell me!” She regarded him with undisguised interest, looking him up and down, her eyes at last resting on his face.
“The trial will probably finish tomorrow,” he answered, his voice hard and clear, his diction exaggeratedly perfect. “Sir Herbert will be acquitted.”
Her eyebrows rose even higher. “Don’t say you have come here in the middle of the night to tell me that? I expected it—but regardless, when it happens will be quite soon enough.” There was still amusement and question in her face. She did not entirely believe he was so absurd. She was waiting for his real reason for coming.
“He is guilty,” he said harshly.
“Indeed?” She came farther in and closed the doors behind her. She was a remarkably handsome woman in a unique way. The whole room was filled with her presence, and he had a powerful feeling that she knew it. “That is only your own opinion, Mr. Monk. If you had proof you would be at Mr. Lovat-Smith’s house, telling him, not here doing …” She hesitated. “Whatever it is you are doing? You have not so far explained yourself….”
“I don’t have proof,” he answered. “But you do.”
“I do?” Her voice rose in sheer amazement. “My dear man, you are talking the most arrant rubbish. I have nothing of the kind.”
“Yes you do.” He remained staring at her, meeting her eyes and holding them. Gradually she recognized the power in him, and the implacable intent. The amusement died out of her face.
“You are mistaken,” she said softly. “I do not.” She turned away and began fiddling idly with an ornament on the marble-topped table. “The whole idea of her wishing to marry him is utterly foolish. Mr. Rathbone has demonstrated that.”
“Of course it is,” he agreed, watching her long fingers caress the porcelain of the figurine. “She was using her knowledge to try to get him to help her gain admittance to a medical school.”
“That is preposterous,” she said, still not looking at him. “No school would take a woman. He must have told her that.”
