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“There is something worse than that,” she said quietly. “What if she became with child?”
Monk and Callandra both turned slowly toward her and it was only too apparent in their faces that such an idea had not occurred to them, and now that it had they were appalled.
“Whatever you promised, it is not enough,” Callandra said grimly. “You cannot simply walk away and leave her to her fate.”
“But no one has the right to override her choice,” Hester argued, not out of obstructiveness but because it had to be said. Her own conflicting emotions were plain in her face. For once Monk felt no animosity toward her, only the old sense of total friendship, the bond that unites people who understand each other and care with equal passion in a single cause.
“If I don’t give h
er an answer I think Julia may well seek another agent who will,” Monk added miserably. “I didn’t tell Marianne that because I didn’t see her again after I spoke to Julia.”
“But what will happen if you tell Julia?” Hester asked anxiously. “Will she believe you? She will be placed in an impossible situation between her husband and her sister.”
“And there is worse,” Monk went on. “They are both financially dependent upon Audley.”
“He can’t throw his wife out.” Hester sat upright, her face hot with anger. “And surely she would not be so—oh, of course. You mean she may choose to leave. Oh dear.” She bit her lip. “And even if his crime could be proved, which it almost certainly could not, and he were convicted, then there is not money for anyone and they would both be in the street. What a ridiculous situation.” Her fists clenched in her lap and her voice was husky with fury and frustration.
Suddenly she rose to her feet. “If only women could earn a living as men can. If women could be doctors or architects and lawyers too.” She paced to the window and turned. “Or even clerks and shopkeepers. Anything more than domestic servants, seamstresses, or whores! But what woman earns enough to live in anything better than one room in a lodging house if she’s lucky, and in a tenement if she’s not? And always hungry and always cold, and never sure next week will not be even worse.”
“You are dreaming,” Monk said, but not critically. He understood her feeling and the facts that inspired it. “And even if it happens one day, which is unlikely because it is against the natural social order, it won’t help Julia Penrose or her sister. Anything I tell her—or don’t—will cause terrible harm.”
They all remained in silence for several minutes, each wrestling with the problem in his or her own way, Hester by the window, Callandra leaning back in her chair, Monk on the edge of his. Finally it was Callandra who spoke.
“I think you should tell Julia,” she said very quietly, her voice low and unhappy. “It is not a good solution, but I believe it is better than not telling her. If you do, then at least the decision what to do is hers, not yours. And as you say, she may well press the matter until she learns something, whatever you do. And please God that is the right decision. We can only hope.”
Monk looked at Hester.
“I agree,” she answered. “No solution is satisfactory, and you will ruin her peace whatever you say, but I think perhaps that is ruined anyway. If he continues, and Marianne is either seriously hurt or with child, it will be worse. And then Julia would blame herself—and you.”
“What about my promise to Marianne?” he asked.
Her eyes were filled with unhappiness.
“Do you suppose she knows what dangers there are ahead? She is young, unmarried. She may not even be aware of what they are. Many girls have no idea of childbirth, or even what brings it about; they only discover in the marriage bed.”
“I don’t know.” It was not enough of an answer. “I gave her my word.”
“Than you will have to tell her that you cannot keep it,” Callandra replied. “Which will be very hard. But what is your alternative?”
“To keep it.”
“Will that not be even harder—if not at first, then later?”
He knew that was true. He would not be able to turn his back on the affair and forget it. Every tragic possibility would haunt his imagination, and he would have to accept at least part of the responsibility for all of them.
“Yes,” he admitted. “Yes—I shall have to go back and tell Marianne.”
“I’m sorry.” Hester touched his arm briefly, then withdrew.
They did not discuss it further. There was nothing more to say, and they could not help him. Instead they spoke of things that had nothing to do with the work of any of them, of the latest novels to be published and what they had heard said of them, of politics, of affairs in India and the fearful news of the mutiny, and the war in China. When they parted late into the summer night and Monk and Hester shared a hansom back to their respective lodgings, even that was done in companionable conversation.
Naturally they stopped at Hester’s rooms first, the very sparsest of places because so frequently she was living in the house of her current patient. She was the only resident in her rooms at the moment because her patient was so nearly recovered she required attention only every other day, and did not see why she should house and feed a nurse from whom she now had so little service.
Monk alighted and opened the door for her, handing her down to the pavement. It came to his lips to say how pleasant it had been to see her, then he swallowed the words. There was no need of them. Small compliments, however true, belonged to a more trivial relationship, one that sailed on the surface of things.
“Good night,” he said simply, walking across the stones with her to the front door.
“Good night, Monk,” she answered with a smile. “I shall think of you tomorrow.”
