The Shifting Tide (37 page)

Within a few moments they were absorbed into the buzz of conversation. He had been accustomed to such parties for years, but he had never found it quite so intensely difficult to chatter politely without saying anything of meaning. He recognized several people and did not wish to become involved in exchanges with them because he knew he could not concentrate. His usual ease of manner was impossible. Emotions threatened to break through his composure, and it required a constant vigilance to conceal them. He wanted to protect Margaret from the intrusive speculation that was customary. He had escorted her several times now, and it was inevitable that many would be waiting for him to make some declaration. They would be watching her for pride, disappointment, desperation. It was all intrusive, unintentionally cruel, and a part of society they both took for granted.

Far more deeply than that, he wanted to protect her from the fear she felt for Hester and the sense of helplessness because there was nothing she could do beyond continuing to raise money.

“How charming to see you again, Miss Ballinger,” Mrs. Northwood said meaningfully, looking first at Margaret, then at Rathbone.

Rathbone drew in his breath to answer her, then saw Margaret’s face and realized she did not care. She had caught the implication and it barely touched her. He felt a rush of admiration for her. How beautiful she was in her passion and integrity, beside these bright and trivial women. What did a little social prurience matter, compared with the horror that was going on less than two miles away in Portpool Lane?

He moved a little closer to her.

Mrs. Northwood noticed it, and her eyes widened.

There was at least a half an hour before dinner would be announced, but they were hemmed in by people on all sides. He could hardly ask her to find a place where they could speak alone. He did not even know exactly what he was going to say. Such things should be graceful, romantic, not blurted out in the fear they would be interrupted or overheard. He should have invited her to a completely different kind of function. What on earth had made him choose this?

But he knew the answer. She would accept this because it gave her the opportunity to seek funds again. She would have refused a more charming situation, more romantic, where they could be alone and then it would have become embarrassing, and worst of all, contrived. And he enjoyed being with her in company. He looked around at the other people present and was proud that it was she on his arm and not one of them. He found himself smiling. He would create a situation where he could speak to her, even if it was on the way home.

Lady Pamela Brimcott was coming towards them. She was in her mid-thirties, handsome, and formidable. He had defended her brother Gerald on a charge of embezzlement—unsuccessfully. At least she had considered it so, because Gerald had been found guilty even though the sentence had been relatively lenient due to Rathbone’s plea of mitigating circumstances. Actually, Gerald was greedy and selfish, and Rathbone had believed him guilty as charged. But it was his duty to be advocate, not judge.

“Good evening, Oliver,” Pamela said coolly. Her gaze moved to Margaret. “I presume this is Miss Ballinger, whom I hear about so often? I daresay Oliver has told you as much about me?”

Rathbone felt the heat flood up his face. At one time he had courted Pamela, had even considered she would be a suitable wife. That had been before he met Hester and realized that
suitable
was a description without passion or laughter, or necessarily even friendship. Thank heaven his instinct had prevailed. He could see the enmity in Pamela’s eyes, and knew she had not forgiven him for either of the things in which she believed he had let her down. She very probably would not have married him then—he had had no title—but she would have liked to be asked.

“I’m afraid he has not mentioned you,” Margaret replied, her tone polite and implying regret.

Pamela smiled. “How discreet of him.” She let the layers of hidden meaning unfold.

Rathbone felt the heat increase in his face. He would have loved to utter a crushing response, but he cared too much to think of one. He knew Hester would have, and wished she were here to defend them both.

Margaret grasped the implication immediately. Her body stiffened; Rathbone could feel it almost as if she were actually touching him. But she smiled with startling sweetness and looked unblinkingly at Pamela. “He never discusses past cases with me,” she responded.

Rathbone gasped.

There was utter silence for a second, two seconds. Then Pamela’s face went white as she understood what she had heard. For the first time in years she struggled to find a response. The remark had been truer than Margaret could have known, and she could not fling it back.

Margaret waited, refusing to help her.

“He certainly wouldn’t discuss this one!” Pamela said at last. “He doesn’t care to speak of failures, and this was a disaster. He defended a member of my family who was charged with an act of which he was completely innocent, but suffered in spite of it.”

Now Margaret’s face was tense and pale also. She raised her eyebrows very slightly. “Really?” she said with disbelief. “That must have been most distressing for you. I admire your courage in speaking of it so frankly to a stranger.” Her tone implied that it was also indiscreet.

“We are not really strangers when we share so much,” Pamela replied between her teeth.

Margaret lifted her chin even higher. “Do we? I had not realized, but I am delighted to know it. Then you will be as keen as I on giving to charitable causes. I am presently concerned with a clinic which treats sick and injured women in the Farringdon area. Even a few pounds is sufficient to provide heating and medicine so the most desperate cases can have time to recover a little. I shall give you an account of how it is spent, naturally.”

Pamela looked startled—and cornered. “I admit you have surprised me, Miss Ballinger. I did not expect you to ask me for money!”

Margaret contrived to look even more surprised. “Have you something else I might wish?”

Rathbone could feel his stomach clench, his face burning, and yet he wanted to laugh. The whole evening was escaping him. He had failed Pamela’s brother, not in that he was found guilty but in arguing the case at all. He should have persuaded him to admit his guilt and repay the money. He could have; he had had the means. He had bent to pressure from the family, and because he was fond of Pamela he had not wanted to tell her that her brother was a thief. He did not want Margaret to know that.

“Nothing that I could pass to you, my dear,” Pamela said icily, her meaning perfectly plain.

Margaret smiled radiantly. “I’m so glad,” she whispered, and turned to walk away, leaving Pamela utterly confused, feeling she had been bested without knowing exactly how.

Rathbone was amazed, and a little startled at how pleased he was that Margaret had defended herself so very effectively. He caught up with her in a glow of satisfaction, almost pride. He took her arm, but as soon as they were a few yards away she stopped and faced him with all trace of humor gone.

“Oliver, I would like to be able to speak to you for a few moments without interruption. I believe there is a conservatory; would you mind if we went to it? There would surely be a discreet corner where we could go”—she smiled a trifle self-consciously—“without people leaping to romantic conclusions.”

He felt oddly crushed. He did not wish her to take the lead; it was vaguely unbecoming. And yet she had made it plain that her intention was not romantic, and he was disappointed. “Of course,” he replied, hearing the coolness in his voice and wishing it were not there. She must surely have heard it also. “It is this way.”

It was a marvelous room, full of wrought-iron arches and filled to the roof with exotic plants. The sound of falling water was delightful, and the smell of damp earth and flowers filled the air.

Margaret stopped as soon as they were several yards from the nearest person who might overhear them. Her face was extremely grave.

He felt a sense of alarm. This was not even remotely how he had intended it to be. “What is it?” His voice sounded nervous, scratchy.

“Have you heard from Hester?” she asked. There was no lift of expectation in her.

“No. Have you?”

“I don’t even know if she is well or ill,” she admitted. “I choose to believe that were she not still alive, then the rat catcher would have told me, but I can’t even be certain of that. But I do know that it is not over, or she would have returned home.” She looked at him very steadily. “She is still in there, with only the help of unskilled women, and Squeaky and the rat catcher. There is no one to look after her, if she should need it, or even to be with her so she does not face this alone. I am going tomorrow morning, early, before light. Please don’t try to argue with me. It is the right thing to do and there is no alternative.”

It was terrible! Unbearable! “You can’t!” He reached out and took her hands, clasping them hard. She did not resist, but neither did she respond. “Margaret, no one is allowed in—or out!” he said urgently. “I understand your wishing to help, but . . .” His mind was filled with horror, as if a pit had suddenly yawned open at his feet and he and all he loved were teetering on the rim.

She pulled her hands away sharply. “Yes I can. I shall write a message for the men with the dogs to take to the rat catcher. Hester may not let me in, but Sutton will, for her sake.” She looked so white now that he was afraid she might faint. She was as terrified as he was, just as aware of the horror of the disease and the chances of her contracting it and dying a vile death. And yet she intended to go.

He had to stop her. The irony of it was devastating. “I was going to ask you to come to the conservatory so that we might speak alone for an utterly different reason.”

“What?” She was startled, as if she thought she might have misheard him.

“I was going to ask you to marry me. I love you, Margaret, more than I have ever loved anyone else, more than I realized I could. I am very afraid of caring so intensely, but I find I do not have a choice in the matter.” How stilted he sounded, as if he were addressing a judge before a more impassioned plea to a jury.

Her eyes filled with tears, which amazed him.

“Please?” he said gently. “I love you far too much to give up asking. For me there is no second best, nothing else to fall back on.”

“I love you, too, Oliver,” she said in little more than a whisper. “But this is not the time to be thinking of ourselves. And we do not know if there will be a future after this.” There was reproach in her voice; it was infinitely gentle, but it was also impossible to mistake.

His heart plunged. She had seen his terror of disease, and while she might understand it, she could conquer her own fear. She expected as much from him. Had he lost her already, not to plague but to contempt, or even to its kinder and more devastating likeness, pity? And yet he had no power to govern the churning of his stomach, the feeling as if everything strong and in control inside him had suddenly turned to water.

He closed his eyes. “It is precisely because there may be no future after this that I had to tell you how I feel.” He heard his voice, hollow, shaky rather than passionate. “Tomorrow, or next week, may be too late. I could merely have said I love you, but I imagine you already know that—the important part is that I wish to marry you. I have never asked a woman that before.”

She turned away from him, smiling in spite of her tears. “Of course not, Oliver. If you had, she would have accepted you. But I can’t, not with things as they are. I hope you will forgive me, and take my place in the raising of funds. We will still need them desperately, probably even more so. But others apart from me can do that. No one else can be there, nor should they.” She turned back. “I am not asking because you love me, or because I love you, but because it is right.”

“Of course.” He did not have to give it an instant’s thought. He wanted to argue with her, say anything, do anything, to prevent her from going, but he knew if he did it would be rooted in selfishness and it would destroy both of them. He offered her his arm, and they went back to join the party and proceed in to dinner.

It was not late when he took her home because they both could think of nothing but the fact that she must be up early in the morning to reach the clinic before dawn.

He alighted from the hansom and offered his arm to hand her out. He hesitated for a moment, hoping to kiss her. She must have sensed it, because she pulled away.

“No,” she said quietly. “Good-bye is difficult enough. Please don’t say anything, just let me walk away. Apart from anything else, I do not wish to have to explain myself to my mother. Good night.” And she walked across the footpath as the front door of the house opened. She went in, leaving him as utterly alone as if he were the only man alive in a deserted city.

He slept badly and at half past four gave up the attempt altogether. He rose, shaved in tepid water, and dressed. Without bothering to eat breakfast, he took a hansom cab and gave the driver the address of his father’s house in Primrose Hill.

It was nearly six when he arrived, and still as dark as midnight. He spent almost five minutes on the front doorstep before Henry Rathbone’s manservant let him in.

“Good gracious, Mr. Oliver! Whatever’s wrong?” he said with horror. “Come in, sir. Let me get you a brandy. I’ll go an’ fetch the master.”

“Thank you,” Rathbone accepted. “That’s very good of you. Please tell him that I am quite unhurt, and so far as I know in perfectly good health.”

Henry Rathbone arrived some ten minutes later, accepting the offer of a cup of tea from his manservant. Then he sat down in the armchair opposite Oliver, who was nursing a brandy. He did not cross his legs as usual but leaned forward, giving Rathbone his whole attention. The room was cold, no one having risen yet, in the normal course of the day, to clean out the grate, set, and light a new fire.

“What is it?” he said simply. He was a taller man than his son, lean with a gentle, aquiline face and steady, very clear blue eyes. He had been a mathematician and sometime inventor in his earlier years, and the lucidity of his mind, and its gentle reasonableness, had often assisted in Oliver’s more desperate cases.