'Not at all,' Rathbone replied quite spontaneously. 'It is serious only in the damages if my client loses, but the offense is relatively slight. It is a suit for breach of promise.'
'Oh!' Gabriel looked surprised and Rathbone felt as if he had disappointed him by dealing with anything so trivial. In comparison with what Gabriel had experienced, which Rathbone had read about only in newspapers, no doubt robbed of much of its horror and detail, a broken romance seemed an insult even to mention. It was certainly painful, but a common affliction of mankind. Surely everyone suffered such disappointment, in some degree or another, if they were capable of love at all?
He looked at Hester to see what she might feel. Would she consider it absurd too?
'Breach of promise?' she said slowly, staring back at him.
Suddenly he was aware of how much of her he did not know. Why had she gone to the Crimea in the beginning? Had someone let her down, just as Melville had Zillah Lambert?
Had she felt that humiliation, the laughter of friends, the sense of utter rejection, the whole of her certain and happy world shattered at a blow?
Now, instead of with Melville, his whole sympathy was with Zillah. He saw Hester in her place, and burned with anger for her and with shame for his own clumsiness.
'Yes…' He fumbled for the words to try to mend things. 'I think it arises out of misunderstanding rather than intentional callousness. He swears that he did not even ask her to marry him. It was merely assumed. That is the reason I was prepared to accept the case. Now I find I cannot comprehend his motive at all, and I cannot help believing that he is concealing something of the utmost importance, but I have no idea what.'
Athol shook his head. 'A man of no honor,' he said, speaking for the first time since they had entered the room. 'Once you have given your word you must abide by it, regardless of what you may then wish. A man's word should bind him for life… even to death, if need be.' He glanced at his brother. 'Of course, if circumstances change, then you say so, and offer to set a woman free. That is a different thing.' He frowned at Rathbone. 'Was she changed, this woman? Has she had to lie about something? You said she was virtuous, didn't you? Or did I assume it?'
'So far as I know she is perfectly virtuous,' Rathbone replied. 'She seems in every way all that one could wish. And my client swears she has no faults that he is aware of.'
'Then he is a bounder, sir, a complete outsider,' Athol pronounced. 'You cannot defend him; he is indefensible. Your clearest duty is to persuade him to honor his promise, with the utmost apology.'
'She would be unlikely to want him now,' Hester pointed out. 'I certainly shouldn't. It might make me feel better to have him offer, but I would most certainly decline.'
'I suggested that,' Rathbone explained. 'He was afraid she might not decline and then he would be back in his present situation, and he refuses absolutely to go through with it, but he will not tell me why.'
Hester burst into laughter, then controlled herself again instantly.
'How marvelously arrogant!' she exclaimed. 'She would be quite mad to accept him in those circumstances. All it would do would be to give her the opportunity to be the one to turn him down. There has to be more to it than you have been told.'
'Perhaps he is already married?' Gabriel suggested. 'Perhaps it is unhappy, an arrangement over which he had little control, a family obligation, and he has run away from it, fallen in love with her, but now realizes he cannot commit bigamy. Only he does not tell anyone, because he does not wish his wife to find out.' He looked pleased with himself, forgetting to be conscious of his disfigurement.
'That is quite plausible,' Rathbone thought aloud. 'Providing his family are some considerable distance away, perhaps Scotland or Ireland. He is bent on making a name for himself in London.'
'Has his eye on someone higher,' Athol said dismissively. 'More money, better connected family.'
'Well, he is ruining his chances completely by losing a suit for breach of promise,' Gabriel pointed out. He looked at Rathbone. 'Didn't you say this young lady is an heiress?'
'Yes, very considerable,' Rathbone agreed. He turned back to Hester. 'And I have the strong impression that his emotion is fear, even panic, rather than greed. He is quite aware that this girl's father is ideally placed to assist him in his career, and has done so already. No, he is definitely a man caught in a situation which is intolerable to him, but I don't know why!'
Athol snorted. 'If he won't tell you, then it is something he is ashamed of! An honorable man would explain himself.'
It was a very bald statement, without sensitivity or allowance, and yet before Rathbone could frame a contradiction, he realized it was true. Were there not something profoundly wrong, real or imaginary, Melville would have explained his situation to Rathbone, if not to Zillah Lambert.
'Perhaps he is in love with somebody else?' Hester suggested.
'Then why doesn't he simply tell me?' Rathbone continued. 'It is a plain enough thing to understand. I might not agree, but I would know what arguments I was facing.'
Hester thought for a moment.
'Cannot always have what you want just because you want it,' Athol observed sourly. 'There is such a thing as duty.'
'Maybe it is someone he cannot approach?' Hester looked up at Rathbone, who was still standing, as Athol was, because there was no suitable place to sit.
'Cannot approach?' Rathbone repeated. 'Why not? You mean someone already married? Perhaps a close friend of-' He stopped just before he mentioned the Lamberts' name.
'Why not?' she agreed. 'Or…'
'It happens,' he said, shaking his head. 'That is not anything to be ashamed of. It is simply awkward, possibly embarrassing, but not worth this public disgrace.'
'What about her mother?'
'What?' Rathbone was incredulous. The idea was inconceivable.
Athol misunderstood completely. 'Don't suppose the poor woman knows,' he put in. 'Wouldn't have brought the action if she did.' He shook his head, his face still bland and certain.
'Hester means what if the man is in love with the girl's mother,' Gabriel enlightened him. 'And even if she did know, it wouldn't stop her bringing the suit, because she will hardly be likely to tell the father, will she?'
'Good God!' Athol was astounded.
Rathbone collected his wits. 'I suppose it's possible,' he said slowly, remembering Delphine's lovely face, her delicacy, the grace with which she moved. Melville would not be the first young man to fall in love with an older woman. It had never entered Rathbone's thoughts, and even now he found it exceedingly difficult. Delphine had seemed so genuinely betrayed. But then maybe she had no idea.
Hester's mind was racing ahead. 'Or perhaps the girl is in love with someone else and your client knows it,' she suggested. 'It could be a matter of honor with him, the greatest gift to her he could give… and she dare not tell her parents, if this other person is unsuitable. Or on the other hand, it might be pride-he could not marry a woman he knew did not love him but did love someone else. I wouldn't! No matter how willing he was to go through with it.'
Rathbone smiled. 'I'm sure you wouldn't. But there is an optimism, or an arrogance, in many of us which makes us believe we can teach someone to love us if only we have the chance.' Then he wondered immediately if he should have said that. Was it not too close to the unspoken, vulnerable core of what lay inside himself? Did he not dream that with the chance, the time, the intimacy, Hester would learn to love him with the passion of her nature, not merely the abiding friendship? It had never occurred to him before that he might have anything in common with Melville beyond a terror of being trapped into a marriage he did not want. But perhaps he had?
He found himself unable to meet her eyes. He looked away, at the curtains, through the window at the trees, then at Gabriel.
He saw a flash of something in Gabriel's face which could have been understanding. Gabriel was intelligent, sensitive, and before his injury he must have been remarkably handsome. His was a world of loss which made Melville's situation, and even Zillah Lambert's hurt feelings, seem so trivial, so easy to settle with a word or two of goodwill and an ability to forgive. If they were to smile and remain friends, society would talk about it for a brief while, but only until the next scandal broke.
'I shall put it to him.' He turned to Hester at last. 'Thank you for helping me to clarify my mind. I feel as if I have the case in better perspective.' He smiled at her, then looked again at Gabriel. 'Thank you for your indulgence,
