A Sudden, Fearful Death

"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 His voice was rougher than he had intended, but it was what he meant and it could not be withdrawn.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 barely aware of the passersby, the clatter, the heat, or the people who stared at him as he strode on.

Chapter 3

Callandra Daviot had been deeply moved by the story that Monk had brought her regarding Julia Penrose and her sister, but she was helpless to do anything about it, and she was not a woman to spend time and emotion uselessly. There was too much else to do, and at the forefront of her mind was her work in the hospital of which she had spoken when Monk had called only a few short weeks before.

She was a member of the Board of Governors, which generally meant a fairly passive role of giving advice which doctors and treasurers would listen to more or less civilly, and then ignore, and of lecturing nurses on general morality and sobriety, a task she loathed and considered pointless.