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Henry accepted that that was the end of the conversation and deliberately he spoke of other things until it was time to leave. He did not ask again if Rathbone would like to stay at Primrose Hill.
When Henry had gone the house seemed oppressively quiet. The servants were conspicuously keeping out of his way. Probably they were embarrassed. What did one say to a master who was out of prison on bail for a crime you did not understand?
What should he say to them? It was his responsibility to broach the subject, and at the very least tell them what was happening and what prospects they had of remaining in his employ. He owed them that.
If he received any jail sentence at all, he would have to sell the house. What would he need it for, anyway? On his release he would hardly come back here. It was too big, far too expensive, and he ought to admit it, he would have no use for a residence in the middle of one of the best areas of London.
He was alone. If he could afford any servant, then one gentleman’s gentleman could do it all. Perhaps he could hire a woman to come in and do the laundry and the scrubbing of floors.
Perhaps he wouldn’t even be able to manage that, to begin with. He could very well end up in lodgings, renting one room. Why not? Thousands of people did. That is what Monk had been doing when they first met. It was a long fall from a house like this, with half a dozen servants, to being glad to rent one room and share conveniences. But then it was a long fall from being a judge at the Old Bailey to being an unemployed ex-convict.
It was different from this side of the picture, very different indeed. How simple it is when the victim is somebody else. Justice is so easy from the blind end, nicely cushioned from everything except the knowledge of an uninvolved conscience. I didn’t cause it. This is the law, and I am not responsible. Now let me go home, forget it, and have a decent dinner and perhaps a glass of port afterward.
He forced himself to smile, wry amusement only, no pleasure.
Even if he were found not guilty, much of the result would be the same. His career on the bench would be over. He realized with a deep ache that whatever the law, whatever rabbit Brancaster might pull out of his hat, morally Rathbone had made a very flawed judgment. He was a good lawyer, even brilliant. He had been called the best in London, and possibly he was, or had been. But that was fighting for a cause, even crusading, requiring all his passion and will and intelligence to be channeled to one side. No judgment was required.
If he looked back at it now, he knew perfectly well that he had made up his mind from the beginning that Taft was guilty, not only legally but even more so, morally. He had considered Drew a cruel man even before he held the picture, and wasn’t going to stand for him destroying other, naïve people from the stand and then walking away without censure.
He was not cool enough to be a good judge, certainly not dispassionate enough. He loved the battle, but did he love the law, above and beyond all else, separated from the human cost and turmoil?
No-perhaps not. And that was what a judge needed to do. A judge should not be partisan, as he was, as it seemed he could not help being.
That would amuse Hester, in a bitter way. She had always thought he was too remote, too controlled. Would she like him better this way?
He would probably never know what she truly thought about any of this because she was too loyal to tell him completely. She would not lie to him, or probably for him, but she would never purposefully hurt him, especially when he was in trouble and alone.
When they all first met she had not known if Monk was guilty of having beaten Joscelyn Grey to death. Reason and evidence said that he was. He even thought he was guilty himself, but the blow to his head in the accident had left him without memory to know the truth. Even now, all these years later, he still knew what happened only from the evidence. Flashes of memory returned, but without connection. There was no narrative of his life.
But Hester had stood by him, even though she did not know, any more than Monk himself did. What would have happened if he had been guilty? It was only a guess, deep-rooted in feeling rather than reason, but he believed she would have stayed loyal to Monk and expected him to pay the price, like a man, and then resume what was left of his life afterward.
Is that what she would expect of Rathbone also? Probably. It had to do with who she was, not with him.
Monk, had he been guilty, would have been guilty of getting rid of a blackmailer who destroyed the families of dead soldiers. Ballinger had dealt in the abuse and pornography of children, in blackmail and ultimately in murder. There was nothing whatever to indicate that he had done it with the slightest regret. He had seen a weakness and exploited it. Rathbone was not sorry the man was gone.
But what about Margaret? He was her father, and she had loved him unconditionally. Where there was doubt, she convinced herself it was because everyone else was wrong. She had turned all her rage and grief against Rathbone, and never once allowed that he had done his best. But Ballinger had been guilty, and no one could have proved otherwise.
And he couldn’t blame her. He doubted he would believe anyone on earth if they had accused Henry of something so vile.
He stood at the window again, looking out at the garden. It was only just over a week since he had last studied it like this. Already it seemed changed. The marigolds were fading. The asters were deeper purple. Patches of the Virginia creeper were turning dark crimson. One hard wind and the first of the leaves would begin to fall. Things were dying.
Rathbone wondered whether Beata York would be loyal to Ingram, if he were to find himself in trouble, accused, maligned, perhaps even charged. He did not understand why he kept thinking of her, but he couldn’t help it. Almost certainly they would never meet again. Pass on the street, perhaps, but not meet as equals, even less as friends. That was another price to pay.
He was still thinking of that when Ardmore, the butler, came to tell him that Monk and Hester were here to see him.
Suddenly his spirits lifted. Some of the tension eased out of his body, and he realized with surprise and some shame that he had feared they would wish to avoid him. Monk had been to visit him in prison, but what did Hester feel?
One glance at her face answered his anxieties. She might be angry, worried, confused as to what to do, but she had not changed. She was a fixed star in a world turned upside down. Friendship was at the core of every relationship that mattered-allies, parent and child, lovers. On its foundation could be built all the other palaces of the heart.
They sat down and began to weigh the situation and consider what could be done. Rathbone repeated all the points Henry had made, and they spoke of other concerns as well, including the death of Taft.
“There’s a great deal we don’t know about that,” Monk observed. “Even if he had been found guilty, the punishment would have been prison, but not for life. He could even have begun again, changed his name and gone somewhere he wasn’t known. For heaven’s sake, the whole world was open to him.”
“That point aside, how could he kill his wife and daughters?” Hester’s face puckered with distress. “It’s … not sane. I think he was suffering some sort of madness.” She looked from Monk to Rathbone and back again. “He just seemed pompous to me, and revoltingly self-satisfied. If he believed anything of what he preached, he wouldn’t kill his family, whatever happened to him.”
“If he believed what he preached he wouldn’t have stolen the money in the first place,” Monk said tartly. “But you’re right, there is something missing from the facts. I need to know a great deal more about him.”
“Do you think it will make any difference to my blame, in the law?” Rathbone asked unhappily. “I can’t see how it would, much as I would like to think so.”
