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“Most people think they’re right, even when they aren’t,” Hester pointed out. “And some people don’t care whether they’re right or not. They just want to win.”
“But Sir Oliver in’t like that!” he protested. “We know ’im. ’E really likes you. I seen ’im look at you.”
Hester felt the warmth flush up her cheeks. Trust Scuff to have noticed that.
“Even the people we care about make mistakes sometimes,” she said, picking her words carefully.
“Does that mean if they get it wrong you don’t like ’em anymore?” Deliberately he did not avert his eyes from hers. He was going to take the blow, if it came.
That was the question she had been dreading. What if Rathbone had done something seriously wrong? A mistake, even an error of hubris, was not impossible. She needed to explain to Scuff that however much you loved someone, you still didn’t cover for him when he made a grave mistake. Would he understand the morality of a greater good being more important than individual love?
He was waiting for her answer, his eyes grave.
“No, it doesn’t mean that at all,” she replied. “But you may not always like what they do. You … you can’t say a thing is right just because it’s done by someone you like, and wrong because it’s done by someone you don’t. It hurts desperately if you have to find fault with someone you love, even worse if it’s someone who is part of your life. But right and wrong don’t change just because of the way you feel about the people involved.”
“Is it always right and wrong? In’t there anything in the middle?” he asked hopefully.
“Yes, many times there is,” she agreed. “That’s when it gets really difficult.”
He frowned. “ ’Ow do yer know if it’s right or wrong or something in the middle?”
“You don’t always,” she admitted. “As you get older you begin to realize sometimes just how difficult it can be and how easy it is to make a mistake, even though you’re trying not to. When you’ve made a few yourself, you get slower to judge other people.”
He looked at her very carefully, his eyes wide and clear.
“You’ve never made mistakes, though, ’ave yer?” There was an innocence in his face, a faith in her. She realized with a jolt how deeply he loved her.
Hester found herself blushing. “I wish I hadn’t, except I suppose if that were true maybe I wouldn’t understand just how easy it is for mistakes to happen, even when we’re really trying to avoid them. That would make me very hard on others. It isn’t making mistakes that matters so much as whether you learn from them, whether you admit you were wrong or try to blame somebody else. And I suppose what matters most is that you get up again and try not to keep on making the same mistake.”
“ ’Ow many different ones are there?” he asked.
She gave a twisted little smile. “I don’t know. I’m still counting.”
“An’ yer gotter pay for ’em?” he said carefully. “You ’ave, ’aven’t yer?”
“Usually. Sometimes not. Sometimes there’s a kind of grace where you get forgiven without paying. You don’t really deserve it, so you really truly need to make yourself worthy afterward by being grateful and making an effort to change.”
“Is that what yer going to make ’appen for Sir Oliver?” He sounded as if he grasped on to that hope tightly.
“I’ll try,” she responded. “If he did make a mistake, that is. Maybe he didn’t, and we can help him prove that.”
Scuff relaxed a little. “That’s good. Can I ’elp?”
“Probably. I’ll certainly ask you, if I can think of anything.”
He gave her a sudden, dazzling smile, and then when he was sure she understood, he drank his tea and reached for the other piece of cake. She always put out two, but it was understood between them that both were for him.
It was even more difficult for Hester when it came time that evening to discuss the subject with Monk.
Scuff had already gone to bed when Monk came in, tired and wet after a long day on the river dealing with the discovery of a body and the tedious investigation that had proved the death accidental. Of course, he had heard about Rathbone’s arrest very soon after it had happened. The jailer’s note had reached him, and he had gone to the prison immediately. He had been permitted to see Rathbone, but only for a matter of minutes.
“How is he?” Hester had asked, almost before Monk was through the door. “Is he all right? What did they say he did?”
“He’s all right for the moment,” Monk had replied. “The charge is rather complicated. Officially it is perversion of the course of justice-”
“What? But he’s the judge!” she had exclaimed.
“Exactly. That makes it all the more serious. It has to do with the use of one of Ballinger’s photographs. Technically he should have stepped aside and let someone else take his place.”
