A Sudden, Fearful Death

some other area for your sister to live, where she could not encounter him again? Do you have a relative, an aunt perhaps, with whom she could stay?'

Her eyebrows rose. 'Are you suggesting that this man who did this thing should be allowed to go entirely unpunished, Mr. Monk? I am aware that the law will not punish him, and that a prosecution would in any case be as painful for Marianne as it would ever be for him.' She was sitting so tensely her body must ache with the rack of her muscles. 'But I will not countenance his escaping scot-free! It seems you do not think it a crime after all. I confess I am disappointed. I had thought better of you.'

Anger boiled up in him, and it cost him dearly to suppress it. 'Fewer people would be hurt.'

She stared at him.

'That is unfortunate, but it cannot be helped. Who was it? Please do not prevaricate any further. You will not change my mind.'

'It was your husband, Mrs. Penrose.'

She did not protest outrage or disbelief. She sat totally motionless, her face ashen. Then at last she licked her lips and tried to speak. Her throat convulsed and no sound came. Then she tried again.

'I assume you would not have said this-if-if you were not totally sure?'

'Of course not.' He longed to comfort her, and there was no possible comfort. 'Even then I would prefer not to have told you. Your sister begged me not to, but I felt I had to, in part because you were determined to pursue the matter, if not through me, then with another agent. And also because there is the danger of it happening again, and there is the possibility she may become with child-'

'Stop it!' This time the cry was torn from her in a frenzy of pain. 'Stop it! You have told me. That is sufficient.' With a terrible effort she mastered herself, although her hands were shaking uncontrollably.

'When I taxed her with it, she denied it at first, to protect you.' He went on relentlessly. It had to be finished now. 'Then when it was obviously true from her own testimony, and that of your neighbors, she admitted it, but implored me not to say so. I think the only reason she made any mention of the incident at all was to account for her extreme distress after it, and for the bruising. Otherwise I think she would have remained silent, for your sake.'

'Poor Marianne.' Her voice trembled violently. 'She would endure that for me. What harm have I done her?'

He moved a step nearer to her, undecided whether to sit without invitation or remain standing, towering over her. He opted to sit.

'You cannot blame yourself,' he said earnestly. 'You of all people are the most innocent in this.'

'No I am not, Mr. Monk.' She did not look at him but at some distance far beyond the green shadow of leaves across the window. Her voice was now filled with self-loathing. 'Audley is a man with natural expectations, and I have denied him all the years we have been married.' She hunched into herself as if suddenly the room were intolerably cold, her fingers gripping her arms painfully, driving the blood out of the flesh.

He wanted to interrupt her and tell her the explanation was private and quite unnecessary, but he knew she needed to tell him, to rid herself of a burden she could no longer bear.

'I should not have, but I was so afraid.' She was shivering very slightly, as if her muscles were locked. 'You see, my mother had child after child between my birth and Marianne's. All of them miscarried or died. I watched her in such pain.' Very slowly she began rocking herself back and forth as if in some way the movement eased her as the words poured out. 'I remember her looking so white, and the blood on the sheets. Lots of it, great dark red stains as though her life were pouring out of her. They tried to hide them from me, and keep me in my own room. But I heard her crying with the pain of it, and I saw the maids hurrying about with bundles of linen, and trying to fold it so no one saw.' The tears were running down her own face now and she made no pretense of concealing them. 'And then when I was allowed in to see her, she would look so tired, with dark rings 'round her eyes, and her lips white. I knew she had been crying for the baby that was lost, and I couldn't bear it!'

Without thinking Monk put out his hands and held hers.

Unconsciously she clung to him, her fingers strong, grip ping him like a lifeline.

“I knew she had dreaded it, every time she was with child. I felt the terror in her, even though I didn't know then what caused it. And when Marianne was born she was so pleased.' She smiled as she remembered, and for a moment her eyes were tender and brilliant with gentleness. 'She held her up and showed her to me, as if we had done it together. The midwife wanted to send me away, but Mama wouldn't let her. I think she knew then she was dying. She made me promise to look after Marianne as if I were in her place, to do for her what Mama could not.'

Julia was weeping quite openly now. Monk ached for her, and for his own helplessness, and for all the terrified, lost, and grieving women.

'I stayed with her all that night,' she went on, still rocking herself. 'In the morning the bleeding started again, and they took me out, but I can remember the doctor being sent for. He went up the stairs with his face very grave and his black bag in his hand. There were more sheets carried out, and all the maids were frightened and the butler stood around looking sad. Mama died in the morning. I don't remember what time, but I knew it. It was as if suddenly I was alone in a way I never had been before. I have never been quite as warm or as safe since then.'

There was nothing to say. He felt furious, helpless, stupidly close to weeping himself, and drenched with the same irredeemable sense of loneliness. He tightened his grasp a little closer around her hands. For several moments they remained in silence.

At last she looked up and straightened her back, fishing for a handkerchief. Monk gave her his, and she accepted it without speaking.

'I have never been able to think of getting with child myself. I could not bear it. It frightens me so much I should rather simply die with a gunshot than go through the agony that Mama did. I know it is wrong, probably wicked. All women are supposed to yield to their husbands and bear children. It is our duty. But I am so terrified I cannot This is a judgment on me. Now Marianne has been raped because of me.'

'No! That's nonsense,' he said furiously. 'Whatever is between you and your husband, that is no excuse for what he did to Marianne. If he could not maintain continence, mere are women whose trade it is to cater to appetites and he could perfectly easily have paid one of them.' He wanted to shake her to force her to understand. 'You must not blame yourself,' he insisted. 'It is wrong and foolish, and will be of no service to you or to Marianne. Do you hear me?' His voice was rougher than he had intended, but it was what he meant and it could not be withdrawn.

She looked up at him slowly, her eyes still swimming in tears.

To blame yourself would be self-indulgent and debilitating,' he said again. 'You have to be strong. You have a fearful situation to deal with. Don't look back-look forward, only forward. If you cannot bring yourself to consummate your marriage, then your husband must look elsewhere, not to Marianne. Never to Marianne.'

'I know,' she whispered. 'But I am still guilty. He has a right to expect it of me-and I have not given it him. I am deceitful, I cannot escape that.'

'Yes-that is true.' He would not evade it either. It would not serve either of them. 'But your deceit does not excuse his offense. You must think what you are going to do next, not what you should have done before.'

'What can I do?' Her eyes searched his desperately.

'This is a decision no one else can make for you,' he answered. 'But you must protect Marianne from it ever happening again. If she were to bear a child it would ruin her.' He did not need to explain what he meant. They both knew no respectable man would marry a woman with an illegitimate child. Indeed, no man at all would regard her as anything but a whore, no matter how untrue that was.

'I will,' she promised, and for the first time there was steel in her voice again. 'There is no other answer for it.

I will have to swallow my fear.' Again for a moment her eyes overflowed and there was a choking in her voice. Then with a superlative effort she mastered herself. 'Thank you, Mr. Monk. You have discharged your duty honorably. I thank you for it. You may present your account, and I shall see that it is met. If you will be so kind as to show yourself out. I do not wish to appear before the servants looking in a state of distress.'

'Of course.' He stood up. 'I am truly sorry. I wish there had been any other answer I could have given you.' He did not wait for a reply which could only be meaningless. 'Good-bye, Mrs. Penrose.'

He went out into the hazy sun of Hastings Street feeling physically numb, and so crowded with emotion he was