The Shifting Tide (31 page)

She forced the image away.

“I admire generosity enormously,” she went on. “Don’t you? I see it as a great part of Christian duty.” Now was no time to be squeamish about coercion. She added the final twist. “Of course, within the bounds of what we can afford! The last thing I should wish is for anyone to feel they have to give what is beyond their means. That would be quite cruel. Debt must be such a misery.”

The Honorable Barker Soames looked urgently at his friend, hoping for rescue. However, his friend was now giving Margaret his full attention, and tasting a certain enjoyment in the situation.

“For the sick, you say, Miss Ballinger? What particular charity would that be? One of the African ones, I daresay?” he asked.

“No, it is one here at home,” Margaret answered, now far more careful. She was perfectly happy to bend the truth a little—the need was desperate—but she did not wish to be caught out. “For young women and children in the Farringdon Road area. It is a clinic that treats injuries, and at the moment is trying to give food and shelter to many struck down with pneumonia. It is most kind of you to care sufficiently to take an interest.” She put a warmth into her voice as if he had already offered a gift.

Sir Robert smiled. “Where may we donate, Miss Ballinger? Would you be able to see that it reached the right people if we gave it to you?”

“Thank you, Sir Robert,” she said with relief and a gratitude so deep it lit her face. For a moment she was truly beautiful. “I shall buy the food and coal myself, but of course I am more than happy to send you receipts, so you know what we have done.”

“Then please accept five pounds,” he replied. “And I’m sure Soames can at least match that, can’t you?” He turned to Soames, who was looking distinctly cornered.

Margaret did not care in the slightest. “That is very kind of you,” she said quickly. “It will do a great deal of good.”

With intense reluctance Soames obeyed. In a wave of triumph Margaret moved on. The next encounter did not go as fortunately, but by the end of the evening she had elicited promises of a reasonably large sum.

The following morning she took the money she had gained, went to the coal merchant, and bought an entire wagonload. She went with the delivery man to Portpool Lane, instructing him as he tipped it all down the chute from the street into the cellar.

She stood in the sharp wind and stared at the walls of the house. It was damp and bitterly cold, and the air smelled of soot and the sour odor of drains, but it was not infected. She breathed it in with a sense of guilt. Hester was only a few yards away behind the blank bricks, but it could have been another world. She looked up at the windows, trying to catch a glimpse of anyone, but there was only blurred movement, no more than light and shadow.

The wind stung her cheeks. She wanted to shout, just to let someone know how much she cared, but it would be worse than pointless; it could be dangerous. Slowly she turned away and walked back towards the coalman. “Thank you,” she said simply. “I’ll let you know when they need more.”

Next she purchased oatmeal, salt, two jars of honey, a sack of potatoes, and several strings of onions, and carried them back to give them to one of the men standing discreetly under the eaves in the yard at Portpool Lane. She also went to the butcher and bought as many large bones as he had, and carried them back. Again she gave them to one of the men with the dogs, broad-chested, wide-jawed creatures with sturdy legs and unblinking eyes.

In the evening she accepted, at ungraciously short notice, an invitation to a recital. She accompanied a young woman who was more of an acquaintance than a friend, along with her parents and brother. It was an awkward party, but she was only too aware that last night’s success might not be repeated for many days, and while ten pounds was a great deal of money, it had already been used.

The music was not the kind she particularly cared for, and her mind was solely on gaining more support, possibly even recruiting someone else to help in the effort. She found herself in a series of brief and unsatisfactory conversations and was losing heart for the evening when during the second interval she saw Oliver Rathbone. He was standing at the edge of a group of people in earnest discussion, and apparently in the company of a gentleman of portly dimensions with fluffy gray hair, but he was looking at Margaret.

She felt a surge of pleasure just seeing his face and knowing that he was as aware of her as she was of him. Suddenly the lights seemed brighter, the room warmer, and she looked away, smiling to herself, and quite deliberately setting about working her way closer to where he was.

It was another ten minutes before he managed to introduce her to his guest, a Mr. Huntley, who was both a client and a social acquaintance. It was several moments further before Mr. Huntley could be directed to converse with someone else, and Margaret found herself alone with Rathbone.

He regarded her gown, which was cut with ostentatious flattery. She saw in his face that he was uncertain whether he cared for it. It was uncharacteristic of her, and the change disconcerted him.

“You look very well,” he observed, watching her eyes for the meaning behind whatever words she should use to respond.

She longed to be able to tell him the thoughts and the fears that drove her, but she had promised Sutton not to. Rathbone of all people would care about Hester. It was a sort of lying not to tell him, but she was bound.

“I am well,” she replied, meeting his gaze, but without inner honesty. She had to go on. It was not possible to tell how long they would have in which to talk. The music would begin again soon, Huntley might return, or any of a dozen other people could interrupt them. “But I am very exercised at trying to raise sufficient money for the clinic.”

He frowned very slightly. “Does it really need so . . . so much of your time?” He said the word
time
, but she knew he was thinking of the change in her, the single-mindedness that absorbed her now so much that she wore clothes to please society and to be noticed. She was at a function she did not care for, and he knew she did not. The familiar in her was slipping away from him, and he was unhappy. She ached to be able to tell him why it mattered more than anything else, or anyone’s personal happiness.

“Just at the moment, it does,” she answered.

“Why? What is different from a few days ago?” he asked.

How could she answer? She had expected the question, but she was still unprepared. Whatever she said, it could only be a lie. Even if she explained to him afterwards, would he understand, or would he feel that she ought to have trusted him? He had been part of everything to do with the clinic, even turning the tables on Squeaky Robinson in order to get the building. He was proud of the clinic and what it did. He had earned the right to be trusted. But she had promised the rat catcher, so in effect she had promised Hester.

He was waiting, the unease in him growing.

“We are just short of money,” she answered. “There are big bills and we have to pay.” It was an evasion. She saw in his face instantly that he knew it. She was not good at lying, and she had never done it before to him. Her candor was one of the qualities he loved in her most, and she knew it more sharply just as she felt him slip from her. He was hurt. Would she lose him over this?

She turned away, her throat tight and tears prickling her eyes. This was ridiculous. There was no time for such personal self-pity.

He started to say something, and then changed his mind also.

She looked back at him, waiting.

There was a sudden hush in the room.

Huntley came back. “I say, Sir Oliver, they’re about to start again. Do you think we might excuse ourselves before it . . . Oh, I’m so sorry, Miss—er—I didn’t mean to . . .” He trailed off, not knowing how to extricate himself.

She could at least help him. “Not at all,” she said. She wanted to smile at him, but her throat was too tight. “It’s a bit tedious, isn’t it? I really think the flute by itself has limited appeal.”

His face flooded with relief. He was completely unaware of any other tension. “Thank you so much. You are most understanding.” He turned to Rathbone.

Rathbone hesitated.

“Please.” Margaret gestured towards the exit so obviously in Huntley’s thoughts. “I must return to my hostess or she will begin to realize my lack of enthusiasm.”

Rathbone had no choice but to go with Huntley, leaving Margaret hurting as if she had been physically burned.

Rathbone spent a miserable evening and went home as soon as he could excuse himself. Something had changed in Margaret and it disturbed him profoundly. He woke up several times during the night, puzzled and increasingly unhappy. Had he been mistaken in her all the time? Was she not the startlingly honest person he had thought her—more than that, he had felt he knew! Certainly the clinic would have bills, but suddenly so many, and so large?

Even if that were true, it was not at the core of it. She was lying. He did not know why, or exactly about what, but the honesty between them was compromised. Her manner of dress was different, bolder, more like everyone else’s, as if she cared what society thought of her and without any explanation she had needed to conform.

For that matter, why had she gone to the recital at all? She disliked that type of function as much as he did. He was there only because Huntley had invited him and it was a politic move that he accept.

The morning was little better, and brought no ease to his mind. He went to his office as usual, and put aside personal matters with the discipline of concentration he had developed over the years. But all the strength of will at his disposal, intense as it was, could not rid him of his sense of confusion, and even of loss.

It was quite late in the afternoon, with the light already fading as rain set in, when his clerk came to inform him that Mr. William Monk had called to see him. It was on a matter he regarded as so urgent that he refused to be put off by the fact that Sir Oliver had other commitments for the rest of the day. He simply would not leave; in fact, he would not even be seated.

Rathbone glanced at his watch. “You had better ask Mr. Styles to wait a moment or two. Apologize to him and say that an emergency has arisen, and send Monk in. Warn him that I have only ten minutes, at the most.”

“Yes, Sir Oliver,” the clerk said obediently, his lips pursed. He did not approve of alteration to arrangements, particularly those made with clients who paid, which he knew that Monk did not. But he also loved order, and obedience was the first rule of his life, so he did as he was told.

The moment Monk came in Rathbone knew that whatever had brought him was extremely serious. He was barely recognizable. His usual elegance had vanished; he looked more like a man of substance fallen on hard times, perhaps sunk to the edges of the criminal world. His trousers were shapeless, his boots built for endurance rather than grace, his jacket such as a laborer might wear, and it was definitely soiled, and with a tear in the sleeve.

But all that Rathbone noticed at a glance. It was Monk’s face that shocked him and held his attention. His skin had no color at all beneath the dark stubble of his beard, and his eyes were hollow, the shadows around them almost like bruises.

Monk closed the door behind himself, having already sent the clerk away. “Thank you,” he said simply.

Rathbone felt a flicker of alarm. Surely if something had happened to Hester, Margaret would have told him? He had seen her only yesterday evening, and she had said nothing.

“What is it?” he asked a little abruptly.

Monk took a deep breath, but he did not sit down, as if he would find the slightest bodily comfort impossible. “I had taken a job on the river,” he began, speaking swiftly, as if the whole outline of what he was going to say had been rehearsed. “On October twenty-one, to be precise. It was to find some ivory that had been stolen from the
Maude Idris
while she was moored on the river waiting for a wharf at which to unload.”

Rathbone was puzzled; it was not Monk’s usual type of work. It must be a favor he owed, or more likely a financial pressure had driven him to accept it.

“Why weren’t the River Police involved?” he asked. “They’re good, and as long as you stay clear of the Revenue men, for the most part they’re honest. Get the odd bad one, but they’re few and far between.”

A shadow crossed Monk’s eyes. “The issue that matters is that when the theft was discovered, so was the body of the night watchman from the crew, with his head beaten in—”

“Just a minute,” Rathbone interrupted. He could feel the tension in Monk so powerful it was like a live thing in the air, but looking for stolen goods rather than reporting and pursuing murder was so unlike Monk he needed to be certain he had grasped the facts truly. “Are you saying the man was killed by the thieves, or not? Was the shipowner trying to conceal it? Who is he, anyway?”

“I’m telling you the facts!” Monk snapped back. “Just listen!” His voice all but choked on the emotion within him. A flicker of self-consciousness appeared and vanished. He did not apologize, but it was implicit. “Clement Louvain. He showed me the body of the man, named Hodge. His skull was stoven in at the back. I saw the ledge inside the hold where he was found, and there was very little blood. I wasn’t certain if that was because he had actually been killed on deck and then carried down there, but I couldn’t find any blood on deck either. I was told he had a woollen hat on, and that might have absorbed a lot of it.” Monk took a deep breath. “Hodge was buried properly, as an accident. But the morgue attendant made a record of his injuries, and Louvain gave me his word, in writing, which I have, that once the ivory was recovered he would see that Hodge’s murderer was caught and tried. He just needed to get his money first, or he could lose everything.”

Rathbone found that impossible to believe. “Why—” he started.

Monk interrupted his question. “If his rival buys the clipper coming up for sale, then he will be first home in every voyage. First home gets the prize; second gets the leavings, if any.”