A Sudden, Fearful Death

It was a hot walk back along the Ride, over Boston Lane and through the fields to Wyke Farm, but Monk enjoyed it enormously. It was exquisite to feel the earth beneath his feet instead of pavement, to smell the wind across open land, heavy with honeysuckle, and hear nothing but the ripening ears of wheat rustling and the occasional distant bark of a dog. London and its troubles seemed another country," not just a few miles away on the railway line. For a moment he forgot Prudence Barrymore and allowed peace to settle in his mind and old memory to creep in: the wide hills of Northumberland and the clean wind off the sea, the gulls wheeling in the sky. It was all he had of childhood: impressions, a sound, a smell that brought back emotions, a glimpse of a face, gone before he could see it clearly.

His pleasure was snapped and he was returned to the present by a woman on horseback looming suddenly a few yards away. Of course she must have come over the fields, but he had been too preoccupied to notice her until she was almost on top of him. She rode with the total ease of someone to whom it is as natural as walking. She was all grace and femininity, her back straight, her head high, her hands light on the reins.

"Good afternoon, ma'am," he said with surprise. "I apologize for not having seen you earlier."

She smiled. Her mouth was wide, her face soft with dark eyes, perhaps a little deep set. Her brown hair was drawn back under her riding hat but the heavy curl softened it. She was pretty, almost beautiful.

"Are you lost?" she said with amusement, looking down at his smart clothes and dark boots. "There is nothing here along this track except Wyke Farm." She held her horse in tight control, standing only a yard in front of him, her hands strong, skilled, and tight.

"Then I am not lost," he answered, meeting her gaze. "I am looking for Miss Nanette Cuthbertson."

"You need go no farther. I am she." Her surprise was good-natured and welcoming. "What may I do for you, sir?"

"How do you do, Miss Cuthbertson. My name is William Monk. I am assisting Lady Callandra Daviot, who is a member of the Board of Governors of the Royal Free Hospital. She is eager to clear up the matter of Miss Barrymore's death. You were acquainted with her, I believe?"

The smile disappeared from her face, but there was no curiosity in her, simply a decent acknowledgment of tragedy. To have remained looking so cheerful would have been indelicate.

"Yes, of course I was. But I have no idea how I can help you." Gracefully she dismounted, without asking his help and before he could give it. She held the reins loosely, all but leaving the horse to follow her of itself. "I know nothing about it, except what Mr. Taunton has told me, which was simply that poor Prudence had met with a sudden and fearful death." She looked at him with soft innocent eyes.

"She was murdered," he replied, his words violent, his voice gende.

"Oh." She paled visibly, but whether it was the news or his manner of delivering it, he could not tell. "How dreadful! I am sorry. I didn't realize…" She looked at him with puckered brows. "Mr. Taunton said that hospitals were not good places at all, but he did not say more than that. I had no idea they were so dangerous. Illness, of course I understand. One expects it. But not murder."

"The place of it may have been coincidental, Miss Cuthbertson. People are murdered in houses also; we do not say that houses are therefore dangerous places."

An orange-and-black butterfly flew erratically between them and disappeared.

"I don't understand…" And her expression made it quite obvious that she did not.

"Did you know Miss Barrymore well?"

She began to walk very slowly back toward the farm buildings. There was room on the hard track for him to walk beside her, the horse trailing behind, head low.

"I used to," she replied thoughtfully. "When we were much younger, growing up. Since she went to the Crimea I don't think any of us would say we knew her anymore. She changed, you see." She looked around at him to make sure he understood.

"I imagine it is an experience which would change anyone," he agreed. "How could one see the devastation and the suffering without being altered by it?"

"I suppose not," she agreed, glancing behind her to make sure the horse was still following obediently. "But it made her very different She was always… if I say headstrong, please do not think I wish to speak ill of her, it is simply that she had such fierce desires and intentions." She paused for a moment, ordering her thoughts. "Her dreams were different from other people's. But after she came home from Scutari she was…" She frowned, searching for the word. "Harder-harder inside." Then she glanced up at Monk with a brilliant smile. "I'm sorry. Does that sound very unkind? I did not mean to be."