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“One has to bear it,” Hester replied, taking Rose’s arm and moving her away from the edge of the curb. “Doing something helps a great deal. The days pass, and it gets better. Do you think that was what Mary Havilland was doing?”
They started to walk again.
“No—no, I don’t think so,” Rose said gravely. “She was…too excited. She grieved terribly for her father, of course, but she really believed she was going to prove his innocence—I mean of…Oh!” It was a wail of horror at herself. She was aghast at her own clumsiness in piling one pain on top of another.
Hester was forced to smile. There was a ridiculous humor to it, in spite of the tragedy. “I never thought my father acted dishonorably,” she said truthfully. “In his mind he was paying the price for his error.”
“What happened to the soldier who…?”
“He was murdered, very violently, by someone else he had…robbed,” Hester answered, then changed the subject. “What was Mary like? Please tell me the truth, not what kindness dictates because she is dead.”
Rose thought for a long time, in fact until they reached the omnibus stop and stood side by side waiting.
“I liked her,” she began. “Which means that my opinion is probably not accurate. She was brave in her opinions, and in fighting for what she cared about. But she was afraid of certain kinds of failure.”
“I think we all are,” Hester agreed. “There are things we can afford to lose, and things we know we can’t and still stay whole at heart.”
Rose looked at her, then lowered her glance. “I think Mary was afraid of being alone, but also of marrying someone she did not love. And she did not love Toby. I am not certain if in the end she even liked him. She preferred the safety of being a good daughter. She did that superbly.”
“And she thought there was no risk in it,” Hester added.
“Exactly.” Rose met her eyes again. “But she never thought of her own danger in defending her father. I think her courage may have cost her her life.”
“You think Toby meant her to go over the bridge?”
“I know the Argyll brothers only socially. We’ve met maybe a dozen times in the last few months, but anyone could see they were very close. Toby was clever and ambitious. Alan was proud of him.”
“But Alan was a success already?”
“Very much. He is quite wealthy. And well regarded, so my husband says.” She frowned. “Actually, his company’s record of safety is excellent, better than that of many other companies. If Mary found anything untoward, then she must have been either very lucky or extraordinarily clever.”
The omnibus arrived and they climbed onboard awkwardly, struggling to hold wet skirts out of the way. They did not continue talking until they had found seats and the horses moved off again.
“Then it won’t be easy,” Hester observed. “I cannot help assuming that Mary was unusually intelligent and of a very practical turn of mind.”
“Yes, absolutely,” Rose agreed. “In fact, she was a little unfeminine in her grasp of logic, mathematics, and such things as engineering. At least she was told so, and I think she believed it.”
“Did she care?”
“Yes. She was a little self-conscious,” Rose admitted. “She was defensive about it, so I suppose that means she did. But that is the thing—the week or so before she died, she was more fully herself than ever before! She had realized that she had her father’s gift for engineering and was happy with it.” Her face was very earnest. “Mrs. Monk, she really was not going to kill herself!”
“Even if she had discovered her father to be mistaken?” Hester hated having to say it, but it would be not only dishonest but destructive of all they hoped to do, for themselves and for others, to conceal it now.
“I believe so,” Rose said without hesitation.
The omnibus reached the end of the line. They dismounted and walked briskly around the corner to the stop for the next one, which would take them as far as the hospital where most injured men would have been taken after the collapse of the Fleet sewer. On this journey they discussed tactics and decided that Rose should begin the conversation
as the wife of a member of Parliament, but when it came to medical details, then she would ask questions as Hester prompted her.
It was a long time since Hester had been inside such an institution, but it was exactly as she remembered. In the long hallway she smelled again the forced cleanliness masking the odors of sickness, alcohol, coal dust, and blood. Almost immediately she saw junior doctors, excited, self-conscious, walking with a mixture of arrogance and terror that betrayed the fact that they were on the verge of actually practicing surgery, cutting into human flesh to heal—or kill.
She found herself smiling at her own innocence in the past, imagining she could change everything except for a few individual people here and there.
It took them half an hour to gain access to the appropriate person. Rose was magnificent. Standing a little behind her, Hester could see her hands knotted with tension, and she already knew Rose well enough to be very aware of how much she cared, however much she might lie with candid and superb ease, at least on the surface.
“How kind of you, Dr. Lamb,” she said charmingly when they were in the chief surveyor’s office. “My husband wished me to learn a few facts so that he will not be caught out if asked questions in the House.”
Lamb was a middle-aged man with a quiff of sandy-gray hair and rimless eyeglasses, and not quite as tall as Rose, so he was obliged to look up at her. “Of course, Miss…Mrs. Applegate. What is it the honorable gentleman wishes to know?”
