Slaves of Obsession (41 page)

How much does one protect the people one loves? What is protection, and what is stifling, denial of their right to be themselves, to make their own choices? He would bitterly have resented such protection himself. He would have felt it belittled him and made him less than equal.

The sun was fading a little in the street, but the air was still hot from the day. The slanted light was hazy and the dust rose in clouds from the dry cobbles.

Monk had looked at Breeland from the witness-box and wondered what he felt, what emotions there were under his cold exterior. He had never been able to read him except perhaps on the battlefield at Manassas. There his passion, his dedication and his disillusion had all been naked. But he
was an acutely private man. He seemed driven to speak of his ideals to rid America of slavery, but whatever more personal, human emotions he felt he could not show. It was almost as if his fire were all in the mind, nothing in the heart or the blood.

Was it actually an evasion of real feeling, a way of making sure the object of his passion never asked of him anything he could not govern, direct, guard from hurting him?

Love was not like that. No choice could be made between the giving and the taking. He saw that in Philo Trace’s eyes as he looked at Judith Alberton. Trace held no hope of receiving anything from her more than friendship, and perhaps he would not have withdrawn his help from her if she had refused even that. Whether he could have escaped from it was irrelevant. He had not tried to. There was no meanness of spirit in him, no self-regarding, at least where she was concerned.

But was Monk thinking of Philo Trace or what he himself had learned of love?

He crossed the street and continued walking. He passed a muffin seller, barely aware of her.

He had never intended to love Hester. He had realized very early in their acquaintance that she had the power to hurt him, to demand of him a depth of commitment he had no intention of giving. All the life he could remember he had avoided such a loss of his freedom.

And he had lost it anyway. She had effectively taken it from him, whether he wished it or not.

That was not true. He had chosen to embrace the fullness of living, instead of playing on the edge and lying to himself that he was retaining control, when all he was doing was abstaining from experience, running away from himself.

He despised cowardice as much as he did self-deception.

He hailed the next hansom and gave the driver his address in Fitzroy Street. He could not go back on his decision, whatever it cost.

He had been home for nearly an hour when Hester came in. She looked tired and frightened. She hesitated even before
she took off her jacket. It was linen, of the dusty blue-gray she liked so well. Her eyes searched his anxiously.

He knew what disturbed her, more even than her fear for Judith or Merrit Alberton. It was his evasion over the last few days, the distance he had opened between them. He must bridge it now, whatever the result.

“How is she?” he asked. The words were trivial. He could have asked her anything. What mattered was that he met her eyes.

She saw the difference. It was almost as if he had touched her with the old intimacy. Something inside her warmed like a flower opening.

“She is frightened for Merrit,” she answered. “I hope Oliver can make as powerful an argument as Deverill did. I wish Breeland would reach out to Merrit. She looks so alone there.” Again it was not the words that mattered, but the softness in her mouth, the fact that her eyes did not even flicker away from his.

“He believes in his cause,” he said, wishing beyond almost anything else that he could avoid this moment, that somehow it would go away. “He can see a million slaves and the moral wrong of their state, the mass injustice and cruelty—but he doesn’t dare to look at the loneliness or the need of one human who needs him. It is too … personal, too intimate, too close under his own skin.”

She unfastened the pin that secured her hat and took off the hat itself, all the time watching him. She knew he had not yet reached the point of what he was saying.

“Does he love Merrit?” she asked.

“Is that what matters?”

She stood quite still. She did not know why, her puzzlement was in her eyes, but she sensed he was asking for reasons deeper than the mere words he used, or the personal question.

“It’s part of it,” she said carefully. “The issues he fights for matter as well.”

“And Philo Trace?” he went on. “He loves Judith. I suppose you’ve seen that?”

A smile touched her mouth, then vanished. “Of course I’ve seen it. It’s so plain even she has seen it. Why?”

“And does she care that he’s a Southerner, fighting for the slave states?”

Her eyes widened a little. “I have no idea. Why do you ask? You like him? So do I.” “But you abhor slaving.…”

The shadow was at the back of her eyes. She knew he still had not said what he needed to, although she could not guess what it would be. Would the warmth go from her then? Would these be the last few seconds he would ever look at her and see that undisguised tenderness in her face, and the honesty? Could he stretch the minutes out, make them last so he would never forget?

“Yes,” she agreed.

“I learned something about myself when I went down to the river looking for Shearer.” Now there was no going back.

She understood. She saw the fear in him. She knew the darkness already. She could not have forgotten that first, terrible, drowning fear in Mecklenburg Square, the horror which had nearly destroyed him. It was her courage which had made him fight.

Now she came forward, standing just in front of him, so closely he could smell the perfume of her hair and skin.

“What did you find out?” she asked, only the slightest tremor in her voice.

“One of the shipping companies knew me. The man expected me to be wealthy.…” This was every bit as difficult as he had expected. Her clear eyes allowed no evasions or euphemisms. If he lied now he would never be able to regain what he lost.

“As a policeman?” Her face was white, her voice catching in her throat. He knew she envisioned corruption. She was shaking her head a little, denying the possibility.

“No!” he said quickly. “Before that. As a banker.”

She did not understand. It was time to put it into unmistakable words, words that could not be misunderstood or evaded anymore.

“Doing business with men who had made their money out of slaving … and it seems I knew it.” He must say it all. Easier now than raising the subject again later. “I was bargaining for Arrol Dundas, my mentor. I don’t know whether I told him that that was where the money came from … or not. Perhaps I misled him.”

For a moment she was silent. Time ballooned out to seem like eternity.

“I see,” she said at last. “Is that why you’ve been … away … these last few days?”

“Yes …” He wanted her to know how ashamed he was, he needed her to know it, but the words were too trite. None of them meant enough for the bitter weight of regret now that he should have allowed himself to be without honor. He had degraded his own worth.

She smiled, but her eyes were filled with sadness. She reached out her hand and touched his cheek. It was a soft gesture. It did not dismiss what he had done, or excuse it, but it set it in the past.

“You’ve looked back enough,” she said quietly. “If you profited from it, it’s gone now.”

He wanted to kiss her, to be as close as people can be, to hold her tightly and feel her answering strength, but he had created the gulf and it must be she who crossed it, otherwise he would never be sure she had wished to, that he had not precipitated it.

She looked at him a moment longer, weighing what he thought, what he felt, then she was satisfied. Her eyes filled with warmth and, smiling, she put her arms around him and kissed his lips.

Relief washed over him in a warm, sweet tide. He had never been more grateful for anything in his life. He responded to her with a whole heart.

Rathbone began his defense when the trial resumed in the morning. He wore an air of confidence he was far from feeling. There was still no trace of Shearer and no sign of where
he had gone. Of course, with his shipping connections that could be anywhere in Europe—or the world, for that matter.

But juries liked a person they could see and whose guilt had been shown them, not a reasonable alternative who was nothing more than a name.

He must repair the damage Deverill had done, the emotional impression he had created in the jurors’ minds. He began by calling Merrit to the stand. He watched her walk across the floor of the court. Everyone in the room must have been aware of how nervous she was. It was there in the pallor of her face, in the slight misstep as she climbed up to the witness-box, and in the quaver of her voice as she took the oath.

Again Hester sat beside Judith. Monk had given his evidence and was free to return to searching for more information about Shearer, anything at all, however tiny, that would give proof of the theory that it was he alone who had planned the robbery and the murder, knowing he would sell the guns to Breeland, but without Breeland’s foreknowledge.

Rathbone began very gently leading Merrit through her story, starting as late in events as the day of the murders itself. He did not wish to open the subject of their early acquaintance, in case Deverill should pry out of it the appearance that Breeland had courted her not for herself but purely as a means to corrupt her into helping him obtain the guns. It might not be difficult to do, given her loyalty to him, her passion against slavery and how much she had already committed herself to the cause, and could not now retreat.

Beside Hester, Judith sat a little forward, her black, lace-gloved hands knotted together in her lap. She was listening to every word, watching every gesture, each expression of the face. Hester knew she was seeking meanings, hope, wrestling with fear, trying to outguess the future. She had been there too many times herself.

On Judith’s other side, Robert Casbolt, his evidence also given, was offering silent support. He was too wise to mouth comforting words that could have no meaning. Everything lay in the balance. It all depended on Rathbone, and Merrit.

“You quarreled with your father that evening,” Rathbone was saying, looking up at Merrit on the stand. “What about … precisely?”

She cleared her throat. “His selling guns to the Confederates instead of to the Union,” she answered. “I believed he should have found a way to get out of his bond to sell them to Mr. Trace, even though he had promised to. He should have given back the money Mr. Trace had paid in advance.”

“Did he still have that money?” Rathbone asked curiously.

“I …” It was very obvious she had never considered that possibility. “I … don’t know. I assumed …”

“That he had not paid for the guns with it?” he asked. “But he did not manufacture the guns, did he?”

“No …”

“Then it may not have been possible.”

“Well … I suppose … I thought he bought them first.” Involuntarily she glanced at Casbolt as she spoke, then back to Rathbone. “But if he still owed anything, I am sure he would have made some way … I mean, when Lyman … Mr. Breeland, paid for them in full, as he could, then anything my father owed could have been paid—couldn’t it.” She spoke with confidence, sure she had the solution.

“If indeed Breeland did have the money,” Rathbone agreed.

Hester knew what he was doing—demonstrating for the jury Merrit’s trust, her naïveté, and her transparent belief that the dealings were legitimate. She did not yet see how he was going to extricate Breeland from the suspicion of deceit.

“But he did!” Merrit said urgently. “He actually paid it to Mr. Shearer, at Euston, when we took the guns.”

“Did you see that?” Rathbone enquired.

“Well … no. I was in the carriage. But Mr. Shearer would not have handed over the guns without the money, would he!” That was a challenge, not a question.

“I think it excessively unlikely,” Rathbone agreed with a smile. “But may we return to your parting from your father? You accused him of being in favor of slavery, is that right?”

She looked abashed. “Yes. I wish now that I hadn’t said those things, but I believed them then. I was terribly angry.”

“And you believed that Lyman Breeland wanted to purchase the guns for a highly honorable cause, far more honorable than that of Mr. Trace?”

Her chin lifted sharply. “I knew it. I was in America. I witnessed the most terrible battle. I saw …” She gulped. “I saw so many men killed. I had never realized it would be so dreadful. Until you have seen a battle, heard it, smelled it … you can have no idea of what it is really like. We don’t begin to know what our soldiers endure for us.”

There was a murmur of appreciation around the room, even of awe.

Rathbone allowed the jury to see her remorse just long enough that he did not seem to be doing it deliberately, then he continued.

“After your quarrel, where did you go, Miss Alberton?”

“I went upstairs to my bedroom, packed a few personal belongings—toiletries, a change of costume—and I left the house,” she replied.

“A change of costume?” He smiled. “You were wearing an evening gown?”

“A dinner dress,” she corrected him. “But not suitable for travel, of course.”

Deverill looked exaggeratedly weary. “My lord …”

“Oh, yes, it does matter,” Rathbone said with a smile. He turned back to Merrit. “And then you left for Mr. Breeland’s rooms?”

She flushed very slightly. “Yes.”

“That must have been a very emotional time for you, and required courage and decision.”

“My lord!” Deverill protested again. “We do not doubt that Miss Alberton has extraordinary courage. An attempt to arouse our sympathy—”

“It has nothing whatever to do with courage, or sympathy, my lord,” Rathbone interrupted. “It is purely practical.”

“I am glad to hear it,” the judge said dryly. “Proceed.”

“Thank you. Miss Alberton, what did you do just when you arrived at Mr. Breeland’s rooms?”

She looked confused.

“Did you talk together? Eat something, perhaps? Change your clothes to the ones you had brought?”