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It sounded like a good idea. Monk wanted to make a better judgment of the man than a few minutes afforded him. And he would like to look a little more closely at the ship. She was beautiful, swift, built to take even the seas around the Horn. He could see how perfectly she was kept. Obviously Gillander did more than take pride in her: He loved her as if she had been a living thing, like a great tree.
Gillander watched him with a spark of curiosity in his eyes. He led the way to the galley and then the cabin beyond where his chart table was, and his maps. The movement of the river was so slight there was barely enough surge to be aware of, more like a gentle breathing.
There was a bookcase in the cabin, glass-fronted so it closed and locked, in case a rough sea should throw everything around. Monk would like to have seen what the books were, but to look would have been too openly inquisitive.
He did look around at the fittings, which were all in old and rich-colored teak, obviously oiled and polished over the years. The brass was bright here, too, not a patch or streak of tarnish on it anywhere. It gave him pleasure to see, and oddly, it made him comfortable, even familiar. Perhaps a well-loved ship was the same the world over?
Gillander unlocked a tantalus, holding the whisky decanter and glasses, and poured one for himself and the other for Monk. He passed it over.
Monk took it and smelled the aroma, then tasted it. Single malt. Excellent. Gillander did not stint himself. He would like to learn more about the man.
Gillander held up his glass, tipped it a fraction toward Monk in a salute, then drank.
Something heavy must have passed them because the wake of it made the schooner rock very gently. Monk adjusted his balance without thinking.
“Do much sailing now?” Gillander asked with interest.
Monk hesitated for an instant. What was the answer that would not trip him up?
“A little. But that was a long time ago.”
Gillander was watching him, waiting.
“Oceangoing, like this?” He smiled. “Been round the Horn in her.” He looked at the cabin with intense pleasure. “She can handle anything: Pacific, Atlantic, China Seas, Caribbean.” He waited for Monk to respond.
Monk looked at the handsome face and saw nothing but vitality and interest in it. The man was asking him a simple question he could not answer. He lied.
“Mostly the North Sea,” he said. “And that has a score of moods.”
“They’ll all love you, or kill you. If you give it long enough, probably both,” Gillander responded. “But by God, while you’re alive, you’ll be really alive! Tell me the most beautiful thing you ever saw—women apart!”
Monk racked his mind for something honest enough that this man would not sense the lie, and yet a thing that would not reveal more than he wanted.
“Summer dawn over Holy Island,” he said. “Sea was like glass, and the light seemed to fill everything.”
“You’re right,” Gillander agreed softly. “It’s always the light, isn’t it? Like everything worth having, close your hand over it and it’s gone. Have another whisky?”
“No, thank you. I have to go and look for Owen. Not that I think there’s a cat in hell’s chance I’ll find him.”
BEATA HAD PUT THE invitation on the mantelpiece in her boudoir and considered it for a whole day before she replied. She did not use the withdrawing room anymore. It was very formal, designed for entertaining, and it had all been done to Ingram’s wishes—in other words, to impress. Also it required a constant fire burning to keep it warm enough to be comfortable. Perhaps she would sell the house, and its memories, before she was out of mourning. She had no wish to live here.
Her boudoir, like that of many other women of means, was her own sitting room on the sam
e floor and wing as her bedroom, and furnished entirely to her own taste. The colors were soft and simple, the chairs comfortable to sit in. The bookcases were filled with books she actually read, such as novels by Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters, some adventure stories, and a great deal of poetry. The pictures on the walls were few, and represented memories she cherished, or dreams she had yet to fulfill. Others were merely beautiful—soft light on water, flights of wild birds across the sky, reeds spearing a mountain pool—and they gave her pleasure to look at.
She must answer the invitation today, or she would effectively have ignored it. It was silly to put it off, because she knew the answer. She should accept. She would have to be very unwell to decline, and she would not descend to such a lie. It was not how she intended to live her life now that she was at last free to choose. What a travesty that would be!
Aaron and Miriam Clive had invited her to dinner. It was not a party, which would have been unsuitable for her to attend while she was in mourning, and if she did, word would spread and everyone would know. She must not appear to be enjoying herself. Widows were expected, even required, to mourn their husbands for a noticeable period. The only way to escape it would be to go abroad, and she was not prepared to do that—not yet, anyway. No, the invitation was to a very quiet dinner over which to discuss the offer Aaron Clive had made to endow a university chair for the study of law, in Ingram York’s name and his memory.
It was a gracious and generous offer. Aaron was an enormously wealthy man, but it was still a notable thing to do, and far from inexpensive. And since he had not known Ingram personally, it was totally unexpected. Beata could not help wondering if it were actually for her that he did so, at least in part. Of course it would also be socially, and—if he wished it—politically a good move. But Aaron did not need such public acts. He was highly respected anyway. His wealth was unmeasured, his influence discreet, but wide. And his personal charm seemed to touch everyone. Publicly at least, he had never made a mistake. But then neither had Ingram, publicly.
What was there for Beata to debate? She had no reason to refuse. Her reluctance was simply her own feelings about Ingram. The thought of young men studying law holding him in admiration was offensive, like throwing human waste into the pool from which all must drink.
No, she must stop such thoughts, and teach herself to think of only the public man, who had been remarkable, at times harsh, but brilliant in the law, tireless in the pursuit and conduct of a case. Until the very end, he had been a force for the cause of justice, at least as he saw it. He did occasionally temper it with mercy, but she wished it had been more often.
She went to her desk and composed a letter in reply, accepting the offer both for the endowment of a chair in her late husband’s name, and to discuss the nature of such a gift over dinner the following evening. When she had written it to her satisfaction, she rang for the footman to take her reply to the post. They would have it by this evening. Surely they would have known that she would accept?
—
