'Have you forgotten?' He made an effort to be gentle with her.
'Yes.' She seized on it. 'Yes-I'm sorry…'
He waved his hand, closing the matter. Then he left the summerhouse and walked over the grass toward the border and the old stone wall which marked the boundary between this and the next garden. It was about four feet high and covered in places by dark green moss. He could see no mark on it, no scuff or scratch where anyone had climbed over. Nor were there any broken plants in the border, although there were places where one might have trodden on the earth and avoided them. There was no point in looking for footprints now; the crime had been ten days ago, and it had rained several times since then, apart from whatever repairs the gardener might have made with a rake.
He heard the faint brush of her skirts over the grass and turned to find her standing just behind him.
'What are you doing?' she asked, her face puckered with anxiety.
'Looking to see if there are any traces of someone having climbed in over the wall,' he replied.
'Oh.' She drew in her breath as if about to continue speaking, then changed her mind.
He wondered what she had been about to say, and what thought had prevented her. It was an ugly feeling, and yet he could not help wondering if she had, after all, known her attacker-or even whether it had truly been an attack and not a seduction. He could well understand how a young woman who had lost her most precious commodity, her virtue in the eyes of others, and who thus was ruined for the marriage market, might well claim an attack rather than a yielding on her own part, whatever the temptation. Not that being the victim of rape would be any more acceptable. Perhaps it was only to her own family that it might make any difference. They would do all they could to see that the rest of the world never knew.
He walked over to the wall at the end of the garden where it abutted the opposite property. Here the stones were crumbling in one or two places, and an agile man might have climbed over without leaving a noticeable trace. She was still with him and she read his thoughts, her eyes wide and dark, but she said nothing. Silently he looked at the third wall separating them from the garden to the west.
'He must have come over the end wall,' she said very quietly, looking down at the grass. 'No one could have come through the herb garden to the side because Rodwell must have been there. And the door from the yard on the other side is locked.' She was referring to the paved area to the east side where the rubbish was kept and where the coal chute to the cellar and the servants' entrance to the scullery and kitchen were located.
'Did he hurt you, Miss Gillespie?' He asked it as respectfully as he could, but even so it sounded intrusive and disbelieving.
She avoided his eyes, a dark rush of blood staining her cheeks.
'It was most painful,' she said very quietly. 'Most painful indeed.' There was undisguised surprise in her voice, as if the fact amazed her.
He swallowed. 'I mean did he injure you, your arms or your upper body? Did he restrain you violently?'
'Oh-yes. I have bruises on my wrists and arms, but they are growing paler now.' Carefully she pushed up her long sleeves to show him ugly yellow-gray bruising on the fair skin of her wrists and forearms. This time she looked up at him.
'I'm sorry.' It was an expression of sympathy for her hurt, not an apology.
She flashed him a sudden smile; he saw a glimpse of the person she had been before this event had robbed her of her confidence, pleasure, and peace of mind. Suddenly he felt a furious anger toward whoever had done this to her, whether it had been seduction to begin with, or always a violation.
'Thank you,' she said, then straightened her shoulders. 'Is there anything else you would care to see out here?'
'No, thank you.'
'What will you do next?' she asked curiously.
'About this? Speak to your gardener, and then your neighbors' servants, to see if they saw anything unusual, anyone in the area not known to them.'
'Oh. I see.' She turned away again. The scent of flowers was heavy around them, and somewhere close he could hear bees.
'But first I shall take my leave of your sister,' he said.
She took a step toward him.
'About Julia-Mr. Monk…'
'Yes?'
'You must forgive her being a little… overprotective of me.' She smiled fleetingly. 'You see, our mother died a few days after I was born, when Julia was eleven.' She shook her head a little. 'She might have hated me for it: it was my birth which caused Mama's death. Instead she looked after me right from that moment. She has always been there to give me all the tenderness and the patience when I was small, and later to play with me when I was a child. Then as I grew older she taught me and shared in all my experiences. No one could have been sweeter or more generous.' She looked at him very candidly, an urgency in her face that he should do more than believe, that he should understand.
'Sometimes I fear she gave me the devotion she might have given to a child of her own, had she one.' Now there was guilt in her. 'I hope I have not been too demanding, taken from her too much time and emotion.'
'You are quite able to care for yourself, and must have been for some time,' he replied reasonably. 'Surely she would not still devote so much to you unless she wished to.'
'I suppose not,' she agreed, still looking at him earnestly. The slight breeze stirred the muslin of her skirt. 'But I shall never be able to repay her for all she has done for me. You must know that, Mr. Monk, so you will understand a little better, and not judge her.'
'I do not judge, Miss Gillespie,' he lied. He was very prone to judge, and frequently harshly. However in this particular case he saw no fault in Julia Penrose's care for her sister, and perhaps that redeemed the untruth.
As they reached the side door to the house, they were met by a man in his mid-thirties. He was slender, of average height, with a face whose features and coloring were ordinary enough, but their expression gave him an air of crumpled vulnerability overlying a volatile temper and a huge capacity to be hurt.
Marianne moved a little closer to Monk and he could feel the warmth of her body as her skirts brushed around his ankles.
'Good afternoon, Audley,' she said with a slight huskiness in her voice, as though speaking had come unexpectedly. 'You are home early. Have you had an agreeable day?'
His eyes moved from her to Monk, and back again.
'Quite commonplace, thank you. Whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?'
'Oh-this is Mr. Monk,' she explained easily. 'He is a friend of cousin Albert's, from Halifax, you know.'
'Good afternoon, sir.' Audley Penrose's manner was polite, but without pleasure. 'How is cousin Albert?'
'He was in good spirits the last time I saw him,' Monk replied without a flicker. 'But that was some little time ago. I was passing in this area, and since he spoke so kindly of you, I took the liberty of calling.'
'No doubt my wife has offered you tea? I saw it set out in the withdrawing room.'
'Thank you.' Monk accepted because it would have called for considerable explanation to leave without it now, and half an hour or so in their company might give him a better feel for the family and its relationships.
However, when he did leave some forty-five minutes later he had neither altered nor added to his original impression, nor his misgivings.
'What troubles you?' Callandra Daviot asked over supper in her cool green dining room. She sat back in her chair regarding Monk curiously. She was middle-aged, and not even her dearest friend would have called her beautiful. Her face was full of character; her nose was too long, her hair obviously beyond the ability of her maid to dress satisfactorily, let alone fashionably, but her eyes were wide, clear, and of remarkable intelligence. Her gown was a most pleasing shade of dark green, though of a cut neither one thing nor another, as though an unskilled dressmaker had tried to update it Monk regarded her with total affection. She was candid, courageous, inquisitive, and opinionated in the best possible way. Her sense of humor never failed her. She was everything he liked in a friend, and she was also generous enough to have engaged him as a business partner, sustaining him during those times when his cases were too few or too paltry to provide an adequate income. In return she required to know all
