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“How do you do, Mrs. Monk,” Rose Applegate said warmly. Then she glanced at her husband. “Nice of you to consult me, but quite unnecessary.” She invited Hester to resume her seat, since she had naturally stood up when Mrs. Applegate came in. Rose sat opposite, leaving her husband to sit where he would. “Mary died a couple of days ago, and we are all very distressed about it, and angry. I don’t believe for an instant it was as simple as they say. She wouldn’t do it, she just wouldn’t.”
“My dear…,” Applegate began.
She did not exactly say “Hush” to him, but almost. It was apparent that he was devoted to her and that she was sufficiently confident in that devotion not to defer to him when she felt passionately.
Suddenly Hester had a flash of understanding. “Mary Havilland!” she said quickly. “Are you speaking of Mary Havilland?” It would make perfect sense with the little that Monk had told her of the death on the river.
Morgan Applegate and Rose looked at each other, then at Hester. Rose was now pale, her hazel eyes troubled. “The news has spread so widely already?” she asked softly.
Applegate reached over to put his hand on her arm. It was an extraordinarily protective gesture, as gentle as if he touched some wound.
“No,” Hester answered, lowering her own voice, aware now that she was dealing with real and present pain. “I know of it only because my husband is in the River Police and was the one who actually saw it happen.”
Rose gave an involuntary gasp, and Applegate’s hand tightened slightly on her arm. Hester could see in their eyes that they wanted to ask more but dared not, afraid of the finality of the answer.
“He isn’t sure what happened,” Hester told them. “It wasn’t possible to see from that distance, and of course they were looking upwards.” She knew why Monk was so reluctant to believe it, but she could not tell these people of her own loss. She had thought the pain of it was healed, safe as long as it was not touched. She had not tried to remember her father’s face for a long time, perhaps not since she had learned to believe that Monk loved her enough to let go of his own fears.
“My husband is trying to find out precisely what happened,” she added.
Rose blinked. “You mean…it might not be taken as suicide?” There was a flare of hope in her eyes. “She would never have killed herself! I’d stake anything on that!”
“Rose…,” Applegate began.
She shook him off impatiently, without taking her eyes from Hester’s.
“If you had known Mary, I wouldn’t have to tell you that. She had far too much cour
age to give up. She simply wouldn’t! She was too…too angry to let them get away with it!”
Hester saw Applegate wince, but was beginning to appreciate already that he had no control over his wife’s passion. If Rose was outspoken, that was part of her nature, and part of what he loved in her.
“Angry with whom?” Hester asked. “Circumstances or people? The Big Stink was appalling. We can’t allow it to happen again. And the typhoid was even worse. Some of the soldiers died of typhoid in the Crimea. I wouldn’t wish it on Satan himself.”
“Oh, I know we must build the new sewers,” Rose agreed. “But Mary was sure that some of the machines were being used without regard to safety. People are so determined to be faster than their competitors that they are ignoring the rules, and sooner or later the navvies are going to pay the price. You know about the collapse of the Fleet sewer? Of course you do. It was in all the newspapers. That will be nothing compared to what could happen if—”
“Rose, you don’t know that!” Applegate interrupted her at last.
“Mary believed it, and she may have been right, but she—”
“She’s still right!” Rose corrected him.
“But she had no proof!” he finished.
“Exactly!” Rose said, as if that sealed her point. She stared at Hester.
“She knew there was proof and she intended to get it. She was certain she could. Does that sound to you like someone who would take her own life?” She leaned towards Hester, just as Hester had done towards Applegate, unconscious of it, impelled by her fervor. “She loved her father, Mrs. Monk. They understood each other in a way few people do who are of different generations. She had a strong, clear mind and immense courage. I don’t know why people think women can’t be like that! It’s our skirts that stop us from running, not our legs!”
“Rose!” Applegate expostulated.
“You are not shocked, are you?” Rose asked Hester with a flicker of anxiety.
Hester wanted to laugh, but it might hurt their feelings, as if she did not take death seriously. She did, infinitely seriously. But she knew that in the drowning, suffocating horror of war or epidemic disease, laughter, however black, was sometimes the only bulwark against defeat—or madness. But one could not say so in a London withdrawing room, or morning room, or any part of the house at all.
“No, no,” she assured Rose. “In fact, I would like to remember it to say again. There will be countless times when it will be appropriate. Would you like attribution, or prefer I forget who said it first?”
Rose blinked, but it was with pleasure as well as self-consciousness. “I think it might be better for my husband’s position if you forgot,” she replied reluctantly. “The House of Commons is extremely robust in its opinions, but then there are no ladies speaking, and that makes all the difference.” Her mouth pulled in an expression of wry distaste.
Hester understood. She had been freer to say what she thought on the fringes of the battlefield, and had found the return to England painfully restrictive. She went back again to the subject of Mary Havilland. “Did you know her family?” she asked.
