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“Good morning, Mr. Monk.” Her voice shook a little. She searched his face and saw something in its expression that frightened her. “What is it?”
He closed the door behind him. This was going to be acutely painful. There was no escape, no way even to mitigate it.
“I am afraid that what I told you yesterday was not the truth, Mrs. Penrose.”
She stared at him without speaking. The shadow of surprise and anger across her eyes did not outweigh the fear.
This was like looking at something and deliberately killing it. Once he had told her it would be irretrievable. He had already made the decision, and yet he found himself hesitating even now.
“You had better explain yourself, Mr. Monk,” she said at last, her voice catching. She swallowed to clear her throat. “Merely to say that is not sufficient. In what respect have you lied to me, and why?”
He answered the second question first. “Because the truth is so unpleasant that I wished to spare you from it, ma’am. And it was Miss Gillespie’s wish also. Indeed, she denied it at first, until the weight of evidence made that no longer possible. Then she implored me not to tell you. She was prepared to accept any consequence of it herself rather than have you know. That was why it was necessary for me to speak to her this morning to tell her I could no longer keep my word to her.”
Julia was so white he was afraid she would faint from lack of blood. Very slowly she backed away from the table with its bright flowers and reached behind her for the arm of the settee. She sank into it, still staring at him.
“You had better tell me what it is, Mr. Monk. I have to know. Do you know who raped my sister?”
“Yes, I am afraid I do.” He took a deep breath. He tried one last thing, although he knew it would be futile. “I still think it would be better if you did not pursue the matter. You cannot prosecute. Perhaps if you were to find some other area for your sister to live, where she could not encounter him again? Do you have a relative, an aunt perhaps, with whom she could stay?”
Her eyebrows rose. “Are you suggesting that this man who did this thing should be allowed to go entirely unpunished, Mr. Monk? I am aware that the law will not punish him, and that a prosecution would in any case be as painful for Marianne as it would ever be for him.” She was sitting so tensely her body must ache with the rack of her muscles. “But I will not countenance his escaping scot-free! It seems you do not think it a crime after all. I confess I am disappointed. I had thought better of you.”
Anger boiled up in him, and it cost him dearly to suppress it. “Fewer people would be hurt.”
She stared at him.
“That is unfortunate, but it cannot be helped. Who was it? Please do not prevaricate any further. You will not change my mind.”
“It was your husband, Mrs. Penrose.”
She did not protest outrage or disbelief. She sat totally motionless, her face ashen. Then at last she licked her lips and tried to speak. Her throat convulsed and no sound came. Then she tried again.
“I assume you would not have said this—if—if you were not totally sure?”
“Of course not.” He longed to comfort her, and there was no possible comfort. “Even then I would prefer not to have told you. Your sister begged me not to, but I felt I had to, in part because you were determined to pursue the matter, if not through me, then with another agent. And also because there is the danger of it happening again, and there is the possibility she may become with child—”
“Stop it!” This time the cry was torn from her in a frenzy of pain. “Stop it! You have told me. That is sufficient.” With a terrible effort she mastered herself, although her hands were shaking uncontrollably.
“When I taxed her with it, she denied it at first, to protect you.” He went on relentlessly. It had to be finished now. “Then when it was obviously true from her own testimony, and that of your neighbors, she admitted it, but implored me not to say so. I think the only reason she made any mention of the incident at all was to account for her extreme distress after it, and for the bruising. Otherwise I think she would have remained silent, for your sake.”
“Poor Marianne.” Her voice trembled violently. “She would endure that for me. What harm have I done her?”
He moved a step nearer to her, undecided whether to sit without invitation or remain standing, towering over her. He opted to sit.
“You cannot blame yourself,” he said earnestly. “You of all people are the most innocent in this.”
“No I am not, Mr. Monk.” She did not look at him but at some distance far beyond the green shadow of leaves across the window. Her voice was now filled with self-loathing. “Audley is a man with natural expectations, and I have denied him all the years we have been married.” She hunched into herself as if suddenly the room were intolerably cold, her fingers gripping her arms painfully, driving the blood out of the flesh.
He wanted to interrupt her and tell her the explanation was private and quite unnecessary, but he knew she needed to tell him, to rid herself of a burden she could no longer bear.
“I should not have, but I was so afraid.” She was shivering very slightly, as if her muscles were locked. “You see, my mother had child after child between my birth and Marianne’s. All of them miscarried or died. I watched her in such pain.” Very slowly she began rocking herself back and forth as if in some way the movement eased her as the words poured out. “I remember her looking so white, and the blood on the sheets. Lots of it, great dark red stains as though her life were pouring out of her. They tried to hide them from me, and keep me in my own room. But I heard her crying with the pain of it, and I saw the maids hurrying about with bundles of linen, and trying to fold it so no one saw.” The tears were running down her own face now and she made no pretense of concealing them. “And then when I was allowed in to see her, she would look so tired, with dark rings ’round her eyes, and her lips white. I knew she had been crying for the baby that was lost, and I couldn’t bear it!”
Without thinking Monk put out his hands and held hers. Unconsciously she clung to him, her fingers strong, gripping him like a lifeline.
“I knew she had dreaded it, every time she was with child. I felt the terror in her, even though I didn’t know then what caused it. And when Marianne was born she was so pleased.” She smiled as she remembered, and for a moment her eyes were tender and brilliant with gentleness. “She held her up and showed her to me, as if we had done it together. The midwife wanted to send me away, but Mama wouldn’t let her. I think she knew then she was dying. She made me promise to look after Marianne as if I were in her place, to do for her what Mama could not.”
Julia was weeping quite openly now. Monk ached for her, and for his own helplessness, and for all the terrified, lost, and grieving women.
“I stayed with her all that night,” she went on, still rocking herself. “In the morning the bleeding started again, and they took me out, but I can remember the doctor being sent for. He went up the stairs with his face very grave and his black bag in his hand. There were more sheets carried out, and all the maids were frightened and the butler stood around looking sad. Mama died in the morning. I don’t remember what time, but I knew it. It was as if suddenly I was alone in a way I never had been before. I have never been quite as warm or as safe since then.”
