“And if you win, he will be hanged.”
“Yes.”
“And that offends you?”
“Yes.”
“And if you lose, he will be a free man, guilty, and vindicated.”
“Yes.”
“I cannot help you, except to a quiet evening by the fire and another glass of claret. You already know everything I would say.”
“Yes, of course I do. I suppose I simply do not want to say them to myself alone.” He drank from the glass and the taste of it filled him. At least until it was time to leave, he could let the matter go.
Monk had not been in court. He would be called as a witness, so he could not attend until after he had given evidence, and he had no desire to wait around in corridors catching snippets of news.
He had no further word from Drusilla Wyndham. If she intended drawing the police into the matter of his alleged assault, she had apparently delayed her complaint. He thought it far more likely she knew the futility of such a prosecution, and would ruin him by innuendo, a slower, subtler form of torture, and far more likely to be successful. He would have to wait with the sword hanging over his head, never knowing when it would fall.
He went to see Evan, only to find he had been sent to Crouch End to interview a burglary suspect and would not be back until tomorrow. There was little he could do to help Monk until he knew at least what case, if any, was involved.
Monk strode the cold pavements almost oblivious of the gusts of wind blowing in his face. A carriage passed too close to the curb, its wheels splashing through the gutters and soaking him. His trousers flapped wetly around his ankles.
What had he done to Drusilla? What had he done to any woman? He knew so little about his personal life. He had not written regularly to his sister, Beth. He knew that from the few letters of hers he had kept. He had loathed Runcorn, and been at least partially responsible for the aggressive, self-serving way in which he now behaved. Runcorn had felt Monk’s contempt all his professional life. His original mild dislike of him had hardened into fear, not without cause. Monk had sensed his
weaknesses, and played on them.
There was nothing in that to admire.
Granted, Runcorn was an unattractive man, narrow, self-absorbed and a coward with no generosity of soul. But he was the poorer for having worked with Monk, not the richer.
Who else was there? No one from the past that he knew. Perhaps he had treated Hermione well? It seemed it was she who had let him down. But if he had known her longer, if she had not so bitterly disillusioned him, would he in time have hurt her also?
That was a futile line of thought.
He crossed the road, ignoring the horse droppings which had not been swept.
What of the present, the brief span of two years since the accident? He had behaved honorably with Evan. He was perfectly sure of that. And with Callandra. Callandra was fond of him; she quite genuinely liked him. The knowledge of that was one of the most pleasant of all his possessions, and he clung to it with a fierceness which he would not have believed possible even a month ago.
But Callandra was in her fifties. A far truer mirror would be Hester. How had he treated Hester, who had stood with him against such terrors in the past, and who had been unquestioningly brave and loyal in the teeth of failure and opposition?
He had been there, unfailingly, when she was in danger. He had never for an instant doubted her honor or her innocence. He had worked night and day to save her. He had not even had to think about it: it was the only possible course he could follow. No other had entered his thoughts.
But how had he behaved towards her as a woman?
If he were honest, he had been consistently abrasive and critical, even offensive. He had done it intentionally, wanting to hurt her, because in some indefinable way—what? Why did she make him so uncomfortable? Because there was some elemental truth in her he did not want to know, some emotion within himself she touched and he could not afford to feel. She was demanding, uncomfortable, critical. She demanded of him what he was not prepared to give—change, uncertainty, pain. She had the difficulties of a man without the virtues, the ease that went with them. She required friendship.
But Drusilla was utterly different. How he regarded Hester was irrelevant to this.
He crossed the next street, dodging a dray.
He had been happy with Drusilla, enjoying her company without shadow. She was fun, lighthearted, witty, feminine. She had made no intellectual demands, no moral judgments. There was nothing in her which irritated or discomforted him. Certainly, Hester was irrelevant.
But had he hurt Hester? Was he innately selfish, cruel? And had he always been? That was not totally irrelevant … indeed, it was the entire point.
He did not admire selfishness in others. It was ugly from every aspect, a spiritual weakness which soured every other virtue. Even courage and honesty were marred by it in the end. Is that what he was? Basically a man with no generosity of soul? Everything began and ended with his own interest?
What utter and abominable isolation. It was its own punishment, more terrible than anything imposed from outside.