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Barrymore recalled himself. “I have no idea how they could help, but if there is anything …”
“I would like to speak to Mrs. Barrymore, if she is well enough.”
“Mrs. Barrymore?” He seemed surprised.
“She may know something of her daughter, some confidence perhaps, which might seem trivial but could lead us to something of importance.”
“Oh—yes, I suppose so. I will ask her if she feels well enough.” He shook his head very slightly. “I am amazed at her strength. She has borne this, I think, better than I.” And with that observation, he excused himself and went to seek his wife.
He returned a few moments later and conducted Monk to another comfortable well-furnished room with flowered sofas and chairs, embroidered samplers on the walls, and many small ornaments of various types. A bookcase was filled with books, obviously chosen for their contents, not their appearance, and a basket of silks lay open next to a tapestry on a frame.
Mrs. Barrymore was far smaller than her husband, a neat little woman in a huge skirt, her fair hair graying only slightly, pulled back under a lace cap. Of course today she was wearing black, and her pretty, delicately boned face showed signs that she had wept very recently. But she was perfectly composed now and greeted Monk graciously. She did not rise, but extended to him a beautiful hand, partially covered by a fingerless lace mitten.
“How do you do, Mr. Monk? My husband tells me you are a friend of Lady Callandra Daviot, who was a patron of poor Prudence’s. It is most kind of you to take an interest in our tragedy.”
Monk silently admired Barrymore’s diplomacy. He had not thought of such an elegant way of explaining it.
“Many people are moved by her loss, ma’am,” he said aloud, brushing her fingertips with his lips. If Barrymore chose to present him as a gentleman, he would play the part; indeed, he would find acute satisfaction in it. Even though undoubtedly it was done for Mrs. Barrymore’s benefit, to spare her the feeling that her life was being pried into by lesser people.
“It is truly terrible,” she agreed, blinking several times. Silently she indicated where he might be seated, and he accepted. Mr. Barrymore remained standing beside his wife’s chair, a curiously remote and yet protective attitude. “Although perhaps we should not be taken totally by surprise. That would be naive, would it not?” She looked at him with startlingly clear blue eyes.
Monk was confused. He hesitated, not wanting to preempt her by saying the wrong thing.
“Such a willful girl,” Mrs. Barrymore went on, pinching in her mouth a little. “Charming and lovely to look at, but so set in her ways.” She stared beyond Monk toward the window. “Do you have daughters, Mr. Monk?”
“No ma’am.”
“Then my advice would be of little use to you, except of course that you may one day.” She turned back to him, her lips touched by the ghost of a smile. “Believe me, a pretty girl can be an anxiety, a beauty even more so, even if she is aware of it, which does guard against certain dangers—and increases others.” Her mouth tightened. “But an intellectual girl is immeasurably worse. A modest girl, comely but not ravishing, and with enough wit to know how to please but no ambitions toward learning, that is the best of all possible worlds.” She looked at him carefully to make sure he understood. “One can always teach a child to be obedient, to learn the domestic arts and to have good manners.”
Mr. Barrymore coughed uncomfortably, shifting his weight to the other foot.
“Oh, I know what you are thinking, Robert,” Mrs. Barrymore said as if he had spoken. “A girl cannot help having a fine mind. All I am saying is that she would have been so much happier if she had contented herself with using it in a suitable way, reading books, writing poetry if she so wished, and having conversations with friends.” She was still perched on the edge of her chair, her skirts billowed around her. “And if she desired to encourage others, and had a gift for it,” she continued earnestly, “then there is endless charitable work to be done. Goodness knows, I have spent hours and hours upon such things myself. I cannot count the numbers of committees upon which I have served.” She counted them off on her small mittened fingers. “To feed the poor, to find suitable accommodation for girls who have fallen from virtue and cannot be placed in domestic service anymore, and all manner of other good causes.” Her voice sharpened in exasperation. “But Prudence would have none of that. She would pursue medicine! She read all sorts of books with pictures in them, things no decent woman should know!” Her face twisted with distaste and embarrassment. “Of course I tried to reason with her, but she was obdurate.”
Mr. Barrymore leaned forward, frowning. “My dear, there is no use in trying to make a person different from the way she is. It was not in Prudence’s natu
re to abandon her learning.” He said it gently, but there was a note of weariness in his voice as if he had said the same thing many times before and, as now, it had fallen on deaf ears.
Her neck stiffened and her pointed chin set in determination.
“People have to learn to recognize the world as it is.” She looked not at him but at one of the paintings on the wall, an idyllic scene in a stable yard. “There are some things one may have, and some one may not.” Her pretty mouth tightened. “I am afraid Prudence never learned the difference. That is a tragedy.” She shook her head. “She could have been so happy, if only she had let go of her childish ideas and settled down to marry someone like poor Geoffrey Taunton. He was extremely reliable and he would have had her. Now, of course, it is all too late.” Then without warning her eyes filled with tears. “Forgive me,” she said with a ladylike sniff. “I cannot help but grieve.”
“It would be inhuman not to,” Monk said quickly. “She was a remarkable woman by all accounts, and one who brought comfort to many who were in the throes of intense suffering. You must be very proud of her.”
Mr. Barrymore smiled, but was too filled with emotion to speak.
Mrs. Barrymore looked at Monk with faint surprise, as if his praise for Prudence puzzled her.
“You speak of Mr. Taunton in the past tense, Mrs. Barrymore,” he continued. “Is he no longer alive?”
Now she looked thoroughly startled. “Oh yes. Yes indeed, Mr. Monk. Poor Geoffrey is very much alive. But it is too late for Prudence, poor girl. Now, no doubt, Geoffrey will marry that Nanette Cuthbertson. She has certainly been pursuing him for long enough.” For a moment her face changed and an expression came on it not unlike spite. “But as long as Prudence was alive, Geoffrey would never look at her. He was ’round here only last weekend, asking after Prudence, how she was doing in London and when we expected her home again.”
“He never understood her,” Mr. Barrymore said sadly. “He always believed it was only a matter of waiting and she would come ’round to his way of thinking, that she’d forget nursing and come home and settle down.”
“And so she would,” Mrs. Barrymore said hastily. “Only she might have left it too late. There are only so many years when a young woman is attractive to a man who wishes to marry and have a family.” Her voice rose in exasperation. “Prudence did not seem to appreciate that, though goodness knows how often I told her. Time will not wait for you, I said. One day you will realize that.” Again her eyes filled with tears and she turned away.
Mr. Barrymore was embarrassed. He had already argued with his wife once on this issue in front of Monk, and there seemed nothing more to say.
“Where would I find Mr. Taunton?” Monk asked. “If he saw Miss Barrymore quite often, he may even know of someone who was causing her anxiety or distress.”
