The Dark Assassin (35 page)

"I'm so
pleased you came," Rose said warmly to Jenny as an opening gambit.
"There are few things one can do while in mourning without someone making
a cutting remark. One feels dreadfully isolated. At least I did! Perhaps I am
imagining mistakenly?"

Jenny could
hardly fail to reply without being discourteous-added to which Rose was the
wife of the member of Parliament most important to her husband. She gathered
her wits with an apparent effort. "Not at all. You are most
sympathetic," she responded.

Hester remained
standing back a few steps, as if Rose was alone. Jenny Argyll looked composed,
but Hester could see that the veneer was thin. Her movements were stiff, and
her skin looked bruised around the eyes, as if from too many nights awake and
too much tightly held emotion she dared not let go of, in case she never
grasped it again. Hester would have been sorry for her if she had not been
convinced Jenny had placed her own safety and continued well-being ahead of
that of her sister.

Suddenly Alan
Argyll was at Hester's elbow, a plate of savory pastries in his hand.

"Excuse
me." He brushed past her, his attention focused on his wife, his face
tight and angry. It was almost as if he was frightened that she would in some
way betray him. He spoke to Rose, but his words were lost to Hester in the
general babble of conversation. He put his hand on Jenny's arm protectively.
She moved sideways, away from him. Was it because there was a large woman in
black wishing to pass, or because his touch displeased her? Her head was high,
her face half averted. The movement was discreet, a shrinking away more than an
actual step.

Rose spoke
again, her eyes wide and tense.

Hester moved
closer. She wanted to catch the words, the inflection of the voices. Was Jenny
Argyll protecting her husband because she wanted to or because she needed to?
Had she any idea of what he had done? Was that why instinctively she found his
touch repellent?

Rose turned and
saw Hester and introduced them. She hesitated a moment over Hester's name,
knowing that Monk would produce powerful and conflicting emotions in both Jenny
and Argyll.

"How do you
do," Hester said as calmly as she could, looking first at Jenny, then at
her husband. He did not attract her, but neither did she find him ugly. She did
not see the cruelty in him that she had expected. Even the power in him seemed
blunted. Was he at last afraid, not of the police but of his wife's ability to
testify against him in court? It was her father and her sister whose deaths he
had caused. What monumental arrogance in him had ever made him imagine she
would endure that and do nothing? And was she still so terrified that even now
she would shield him?

Was evil really
masked by so ordinary a face? Or was Hester simply blind to it?

Rose was making
some trivial conversation. They were waiting for Hester to play her part.

"Yes, of
course," she said, hoping it was a reasonably appropriate response.

Argyll was
looking at her, his eyes cold and guarded.

Jenny's voice
sounded strained, too sharp and too high. The conversation was all trivial: a
remembrance of the dead man and the causes he had supported. A footman passed
by with a tray of glasses filled with mulled wine and lemonade.

They were a
little crowded. There was no room for the footman to pass between them. Argyll
took the tray from him and offered it to Hester. Considering the potency of the
mulled wine she had drunk on entering, she decided that lemonade might be wiser
this time.

"Thank
you," she said, accepting a glass.

Because of the
way they were standing, Jenny next to her husband, it was natural to pass the
tray to her next. Jenny hesitated a moment over the lemonade, then chose the
wine.

Rose took the
lemonade, as before. She lifted her glass. "To the brave men who pioneer
social reform.'" she said, and drank deeply.

The rest of them
echoed the sentiment. More food was offered. This time it was sweet pastries
filled with crushed dried fruit, or delicate custards with unusual flavors.

A portly man with
heavy side whiskers took Argyll's attention.

A three-piece
musical ensemble began playing a slow, solemn tune.

Rose turned to
Jenny. "Isn't it awful?" she said confidentially, pulling her mouth
down at the corners.

Jenny appeared
startled. So far they had shared the artificial conversation of acquaintances
who did not care for each other but were civil in their mutual interest.

Suddenly Rose
giggled. It was a rich, absurdly happy sound. "Not the food! The music, if
you can call it that. Why on earth can't we be honest? Nobody feels like
playing a dirge because the old fool is dead. Most of them couldn't wait for
him to go. Death is about the only thing that finally made him hold his
tongue."

Jenny pretended
she was not taken aback. She took a deep breath and answered with a slightly
shaky voice. "That may be true, but we would be wiser not to say so, Mrs.
Applegate."

Hester realized
she had been holding her breath, almost till it hurt. What on earth was the
matter with Rose? This was not part of their plan.

"To be wise
all the time is the utmost foolishness!" Rose said rather loudly. "We
are so careful being wise, we never commit any indiscretions, unless they are
colossal and catastrophic!" She swung her arms wide to show how very huge the
indiscretions were, nearly knocking Jenny's glass out of her hand. "Look
what you're doing!" she reproached her. "Bad wine stains, you
know."

Jenny looked
embarrassed. Several other people turned to look at Rose, then away again
quickly.

A waiter passed,
and Rose took another glass from his tray, but this time she took the wine. She
drank it down in one long draught, then tossed the glass over her shoulder. It
fell on the floor with a tinkle as it broke. She ignored it entirely and strode
over towards the musicians. She made a magnificent figure, head high, skirts
swaying, her handsome face bristling with life. She stood in front of the dais.

"For
heaven's sake, stop that awful screeching!" she commanded fiercely.
"You on the violin, you sound like a cat wailing for a fish head. Unless
you think the poor old sod went to dismal torment, which I admit is likely, try
to sound as if you believed in the forgiveness of God, and some chance of
heaven for him!"

The violinist
clasped her hands to her bosom and let the violin slither down her dress and
fall onto the floor.

Rose stooped and
picked it up. She put it under her chin, seized the bow, and began to play
astonishingly well. She began with the same music they had been playing, but
she altered the tempo to that of the music hall, and then slid into one of the
concert songs, swift and bawdy.

The pianist gave
a little squawk of horror and sat stark still with her mouth open. The cellist
burst into tears.

"Oh, stop
it!" Rose commanded her. "Pull yourself together! And hold that thing
properly!" She pointed to the cello. "Like a lover, not as if it just
made you an indecent proposal!"

The cellist
flung the instrument on the ground and fled, the bow trailing behind her.

Someone in the
audience fainted, or pretended to. Another began to laugh hysterically. A man
started to sing the words to the song. He had a rich baritone voice and-most
unfortunately-knew all the words.

Hester stood
frozen, aware of Jenny beside her and Alan Argyll a few feet away, paralyzed.

Rose did not
hesitate a stroke but kept on playing in perfect time, swaying and tapping her
feet.

Suddenly the
pianist abandoned all propriety and joined in. Her face was fixed in a
terrified smile, showing all her teeth.

Alan Argyll
jerked to life, moving to stand at Hester's elbow. "For heaven's
sake," he hissed. "Can't you do anything to stop her? This is
appalling! Morgan Applegate will never live it down!"

Hester realized
she was probably the only person who could do anything. She was Rose's friend.
Therefore it was an act of the utmost compassion and necessity that she
intervene. She walked forward to the dais, picked up her borrowed and rather
long skirts and stepped up. Rose was still playing very elegantly. She was on
to a different song now, but no better.

"Rose!"
Hester said quietly, but with as much authority as she could manage.
"That's enough now. Let the violinist have her instrument back. It's time
we went home."

"Home,
sweet home!" Rose said cheerfully, and loudly. "That's a terrible
song, Hester. Positively maudlin! We're celebrating Sir what's-his-name's
death. At least-I mean we're remembering his life with . . . with regrets ... I
shouldn't have said that!" She started to laugh. "Far too close to
the truth. Should never speak the truth at funerals. If a man was a crashing
bore like Lord Kinsdale, you say he was fearfully well-bred."

There was a gasp
of horror from the maid. "If a woman had a face like a burst boot, such as
Lady Alcott," she went on, "you say what a kind heart she had."
She laughed again, stepping back out of Hester's reach and speaking even more
loudly. "If he was a liar and a cheat, like Mr. Worthington, you praise
his wit. If he betrayed his wife with half the neighborhood, you talk all about
his generosity. Everyone keeps a straight face, and weeps a lot into their
handkerchiefs to hide their laughter." She hiccupped and ignored it.
"You don't understand," she went on, looking a little dizzily at
Hester. "You've spent too much time in the army."

"Oh,
God!" someone groaned.

Someone else began
to giggle and couldn't stop. It was wild, hilarious, hysterical laughter,
soaring higher and higher.

Rose was
hopelessly drunk. She must have had far more than Hester had seen or realized.
Was this the terrible weakness that Morgan Apple-gate had been trying to guard
her against? Had he the faintest idea what she was like? What she was saying so
devastatingly loudly was awful! The worse for being perfectly true, and what
everyone was secretly thinking.

Rose was about
to start playing the violin again. The pianist was waiting, half in agony, half
in ecstasy. It was probably a night she would remember for the rest of her
life. She kept her eyes straight ahead and took a deep breath, then plunged in
with a resounding bass chord, and then a trill on the top notes.

Hester was
desperate. It was all completely out of control, and part of her was on the
edge of laughter. It was only the knowledge of ruin that stopped her joining
in. She snatched the violin bow from Rose, gripping it around the middle in a
fashion that probably did it little good. She flung it behind her, towards the
back of the dais, where at least no one would tread on it. The original
violinist was still collapsed in a heap, and someone was waving a fan at her
quite uselessly. The cellist had disappeared completely.

"You are
going home because you are no longer welcome here," Hester told Rose as
sternly as she could. "Put that violin down and take my arm! Do as you are
told!"

"I thought
we could play a game," Rose protested. "Charades, don't you think? Or
perhaps not-we're playing it all the time, really, aren't we? Or blindman's
buff? We could all grope around, bumping into each other and grabbing hold of
the prettiest, or the richest... no, that's being done too. All the time. What
do you suggest?" She looked at Hester expectantly.

Hester could
feel her face burning. "Come home," she said between her teeth,
suddenly overtaken with fury at the senseless destruction of a reputation.
"Now!"

Rose was
startled by the tone rather than the words. Reluctantly she obeyed.

Hester put an
arm around her and grasped her wrist with her other hand. Awkwardly but
efficiently she marched her to the edge of the dais. Rose, however, misjudged
the step, tripped over her skirt, and pitched forwards, only just saving herself
from serious hurt by dragging Hester with her, and at the last moment by
putting out her hands to break her fall.

Hester landed
hard, knocking the breath out of her lungs. This saved her from using a word
that had not passed her lips since the days in the army that Rose had referred
to. Struggling to disentangle herself from her skirts and stand up without
treading on Rose and falling flat again, she rose with great difficulty to her
feet. "Get up!" she commanded furiously.

Rose rolled over
slowly and sat up, looking stunned, then began to laugh again.

Hester leaned
forward, caught Rose's hand, and jerked hard. Rose slid forward but remained on
the floor.

It was Alan
Argyll who came out of the crowd. Everyone else was milling around, trying to
pretend nothing had happened, and either surreptitiously looking at the
spectacle or studiously avoiding looking.

"For God's
sake get her out of here!" he snarled at Hester. "Don't just stand
there! Lift!" He bent and hauled Rose to her feet, balancing her with some
skill so that she would not buckle at the knees. Then, as she began to subside
again, he picked her up, put her over his shoulder, and marched her towards the
door. Hester could do nothing but follow behind.