He wouldn't do it now. He would let it go. The shame would be enough. If the vicar knew, even if Drusilla knew in her heart, was that not all it really needed?
“It's past,” Evan said quietly. “You can't undo it. I wish I knew how to stop her now, but I don't.”
“I didn't recognize her,” Monk said sincerely, as if it meant something.
“I spent hours with her, and nothing returned in my memory at all.”
Evan started to walk again and Monk kept up with him.
“Nothing!” Monk said desperately.
“It's not so surprising.” Evan looked straight ahead of them. “She's changed her name, and it was several years ago. Fashions are different now.
I daresay she altered her appearance somewhat. Women can. It was a very trivial offense, to our eyes, but it was a scandal at the time. Sallis was trusted, and the romance came out too. Both girls' reputations were ruined.”
All sorts of thoughts boiled up inside Monk, excuses that died before they were formed, self-disgust, remorse, confusion. None of it found easy words, and perhaps they were better unsaid anyway.
“I see.” He kept pace with Evan, their footsteps making a single sound on the pavement. “Thank you.”
They crossed Guildford Street and turned down Lamb's Conduit Street. Monk had no idea where they were going, he was simply following, but he was glad it was not Mecklenburg Square. He had too many nightmares already.
That evening Drusilla Wyndham, as she was now known, attended a musical soiree at the home of a lady of fashion. She had dressed with great care, to set off her considerable beauty, and she fully expected to create an effect. She swept in, head high, skin glowing with the inner triumph which burned in her mind, the knowledge that the cup of revenge was at her lips, the first taste on her tongue.
And she did create an effect, but it was far from the one she had intended.
A gentleman who had always shown her gallantry looked at her with alarm, and then turned his back as if he had suddenly seen someone else he must speak with immediately.
She did not take it seriously, until Sir Percy Gainsborough also effected not to have seen her, when he quite plainly had done.
The Honourable Gerald Hapsgood positively spilled his champagne in his urgency to avoid her, apologized in alarm to the lady next to him, and then in most unbecoming haste, trod on the edge of her gown and only saved his balance by catching hold of Lady Burgoyne.
The Duchess of Granby gave her a stare which would have frozen cream.
Altogether it was a most unpleasant evening, and she went home early, confused and very put out, not having said a word of what she had meant to.
Rathbone entered the courtroom of the Old Bailey for the third day of the trial with little more confidence than he had had in the beginning, but his resolution undiminished. He had hoped the police might find Angus's body, since they had turned their full efforts towards it, but he had always known it was an outside chance. There were so many other possibilities, and Caleb's defiance of Monk in the Greenwich marshes should have warned him.
He had said they would never find Angus.
Looking at Caleb as he stood in the dock while the judge entered and took his place at the bench, and the last whispering ceased, Rathbone saw the jeering triumph in him again, the violence so close beneath the surface. Every angle of his body suggested arrogance.
“Are you ready to proceed, Mr. Rathbone?” the judge inquired. Was that a faint shred of pity in his face, as if he believed Rathbone could not win?
He was a small man with a lean, weary face, full of lines that had once been pugnacious, but were now too tired for the effort.
“Yes, may it please the court, my lord,” Rathbone responded. “I call Albert Swain.”
“Albert Swain!” the usher repeated loudly. “Call Albert Swain!”
Swain, large, awkward and mumbling so badly he had to repeat almost everything, told how he had seen Caleb on the day of Angus's disappearance, bruised, his clothes badly torn and stained. Yes, he thought it was blood.
Yes, his face was bruised and swollen and his cheek gashed. What other wounds were there? He could not say. He had not looked.
Did Caleb appear to limp, or carry himself as if some limb were paining him?
He did not remember.
Try harder, Rathbone urged.
Yes, Caleb had limped.
Upon which leg?
Swain had no idea. He thought it had been the left. Or the right.
Rathbone thanked him.
Ebenezer Goode rose to his feet, toyed with the idea of demolishing the man, and decided it would be impolite. Cruelty seldom paid, and it was against his nature.
And, surprisingly, having made his statement, the witness could not be shifted from it. He had most definitely seen Caleb Stone looking as if he had been in a fight, and that was no mistake. He would not be pushed further. He would not retreat. He drew no conclusions. He was perfectly certain it was the right day. He had earned two shillings, and redeemed his blanket from the pawnbrokers. That was not an event to forget.
He was rewarded by a nod from the judge and a sad pursing of the lips from the foreman of the jury.
“Ah, indeed,” Goode conceded. “Thank you, Mr. Swain. That is all.”
Rathbone called his final witness, Selina Herries. She came very much against her will and stood in the witness stand clutching the railing, stiff-backed, her head and neck rigid. She was dressed in drab clothes, a plain stuff dress of respectable cut, modest at neck and sleeve, and she had a shawl wrapped around her so that one could only guess at her waist.
Her bonnet hid a great deal of her hair. Nevertheless, her face was fully visible, and nothing could detract from the strength and the spirit in the high cheekbones, the bold eyes and generous mouth. In spite of the fact that she was afraid, and desperately unwilling, she stared straight at Rathbone and awaited whatever he should say.
In her seat on the public benches Genevieve turned slowly, reluctantly, and gazed at her. In some faint way this was her mirror image. This was the woman who loved the man who had killed Angus. Their lives were opposite.
Genevieve was a widow, but Selina stood on the brink of bereavement too, and perhaps a worse one.
Rathbone, looking from one to the other, could see an uncrossable gulf between them, and yet a spark of the same courage and defiance gave both faces the same fierce warmth.
He could not help also looking at Caleb. Would the sight of Selina waken anything in him of regret, of understanding not only of Genevieve's loss, but of what he too was about to pay in retribution? Was there anything of human passion or need or gentleness in the man?
What he saw as Caleb leaned over the rail, balancing his manacles on the wood, was utter despair, that absolute absence of hope which knows defeat and makes no struggle at all.
Then in the public benches Lord Ravensbrook moved, and Caleb caught sight of him, and the old scalding hatred returned, and with it will to fight.
“Mr. Rathbone?” the judge prompted.
“Yes, my lord.” He turned to the witness stand. “Miss Herries,” he began, standing in the center of the open space of the floor, his feet a little apart, “you live on Manilla Street, on the Isle of Dogs, is that so?” “Yes sir.” She was not going to commit herself to anything whatsoever that she did not have to.
“Are you acquainted with the accused, Caleb Stone?”
Her eyes did not flicker. Certainly she did not look across at Caleb.
“Yes sir.”
“How long have you known him?”
“'Bout…” She hesitated. “Six, seven years, I s'pose.” She swallowed nervously and ran her tongue over her lips.
