William Monk 18 - A Sunless Sea

moredaring than he would have picked, but once they were in place he liked them. They made his previous conservative taste seem bland. She had placed the pictures, the vases, the best of the ornaments. Some of them were wedding gifts.
    She had enjoyed being Lady Rathbone. He knew with sadness, and a bitter humor, that she had now stopped using the title, although she could hardly call herself Mrs. Rathbone. There was no such person. Neither of them had mentioned the subject of divorce, although the question of it hung between them, waiting for the inevitable decision. When would that be?
    Perhaps he should not have come. She might raise it now, and he was not ready. He did not know what he wanted to say. Neither of them had sinned in the way usually accepted as making a marriage intolerable. Sometimes one or the other party invented an affair and admitted to it, but Margaret would never do that, and Rathbone realized as he stood on the front doorstep, that neither would he. Neither had wronged the other, in that sense. They were simply morally incompatible, and perhaps that was worse. It was not a matter of forgiving. The division was not in what either had done, but in what they were.
    A parlor maid opened the door and her face registered her dismay when she recognized him.
    “Good evening,” Rathbone said, unable to remember her name, if he had ever known it. “Is Mrs. Ballinger at home?”
    “If you’ll come in, Sir Oliver, I’ll ask if she’s able to see you.” She stood back to allow him into the narrow hall, so different from the handsome, spacious one in the old house. It was darker, somehow shabbier, in spite of the homely touches and the clean smell of polish.
    There was no place for him to wait except there. The house had no morning room or study, just a simple parlor, dining room, and kitchens, probably just one to cook in, and a scullery for washing dishes. There was hardly need for more than a cook/housekeeper, one maid and a manservant of some sort, and perhaps one lady’s maid for both Margaret and her mother. Rathbone wondered wryly how much of this was paid for by his very generous allowance. Wherever she chose to live, she was still his wife.
    The maid appeared again, her face careful to show no expression.
    “Mrs. Ballinger will see you, Sir Oliver, if you will come this way, please.” She led him not to the parlor but to an unexpected small room next to the baize door into the kitchen. Possibly it was the housekeeper’s room.
    Mrs. Ballinger was standing inside. She wore black. Incredibly, it was only weeks since Ballinger had died—it felt like months had passed. Rathbone felt a wave of pity as he looked at her. She seemed smaller, as if everything in her life had shrunk. Her hair had faded and looked thinner; her shoulders sagged so that her gown hung awkwardly, even though it was an excellent one, kept from happier times. She did not fill it out as she used to. Her face was pale but there was a flicker of hope in her eyes.
    Rathbone found himself floundering for words. He knew she wanted a reconciliation between himself and Margaret, hoped that their happiness could be rebuilt, even if her own could not. Margaret’s anger and misery must weigh even more heavily on her than any other. Rathbone was certain of that as he looked at her face now. He had never really liked her. She had seemed to him self-absorbed, unimaginative, in many ways superficial in her judgments. Now he was overwhelmed with compassion for her, and he knew he could do nothing to help, except perhaps keep his temper, try harder to reach some accommodation with Margaret.
    Had Margaret ever thought what her bitterness was costing her mother? Or was she too filled with her own pain to consider anyone else’s? Rathbone realized with a cutting self-awareness that the very anger he wanted to control for Mrs. Ballinger’s sake had welled up inside again, scalding him.
    They were standing, facing each other in silence. It was up to him to speak first, to explain why he had come, uninvited and at this hour of the evening. Without planning to be, he was uncharacteristically gentle.
    “I wanted to see how you were,” he began, as if that were the kind of emotion he often felt. “There might be something I could do that I haven’t thought of. If you would permit me?”
    She was silent for several moments, weighing his intention behind the words.
    “For Margaret’s sake?” she asked finally. “You must still hate Mr.