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"But something spoiled it?" Monk was now truly interested.
"Indeed," Mr. Burnham agreed, without losing a shred of his satisfaction. He was quite obviously not on the brink of recounting a tragedy. "Indeed it did." He leaned forward across the table, his face gleaming in the candlelight and the reflected glow of the spring evening beyond the tall window. "This hall was to be magnificent," he repeated urgently. "Lambert was enthralled with the idea. He took the plans and drawings home with him and pored over them like a man studying holy writ. He was alight with the idea. After all, it is a kind of immortality, is it not? A work of art which can last a thousand years or longer. Do we not still revere the man who designed the Parthenon? Do we not travel halfway around the world like pilgrims to gaze on its beauty and dream of the minds who thought it up, the genius which brought it into reality, even the men and women who daily passed beneath it in their ordinary lives?" He gazed at Monk steadily.
Monk nodded. Words were not necessary.
"He sat up night after night reading those plans," Mr. Burnham said in little above a whisper. "And he found a flaw in them… a fatal flaw! At first he could hardly believe it-he could not bear to! It was the shattering of his dreams. And not only his, but his wife's as well, and such possible future happiness for his daughter; although that, of course, was less problematical. She was a very charming girl and would no doubt find other suitors. I don't think it was a matter of the heart- at least not deeply." He smiled with some indulgence. "Shall we say a touch of glamour, to which we are most of us susceptible?"
"But Lambert chose to decline the building?" Monk concluded, eating the last piece of his treacle tart. It was an illuminating story, although not helpful to his cause. It said much of Barton Lambert but shed no light upon Melville's reason for abandoning Zillah.
"Yes… much to milord's anger," Mr. Burnham agreed. "Lambert's withdrawal provoked questions, and the flaws in the plan were exposed. Reputations were damaged."
"Lambert made powerful enemies?" It was hardly a motive for Melville's act, but he had to press every point.
"Oh no, my dear fellow," Mr. Burnham said with a broad smile. "On the contrary, he came out of it rather well. We may be a society with our share of sycophants and hypocrites, but there are still many who admire an honest man. It was milord who suffered."
"I see."
"You look disappointed," Mr. Burnham observed, regarding Monk keenly. "What had you hoped?"
"An explanation as to why a young man might be reluctant to marry Miss Lambert," Monk confessed. "I suppose her reputation is as impeccable as it seems?" Florence wound herself around his ankles, doubtless leaving long, silky hairs on his trouser legs.
Mr. Burnham's sparse eyebrows shot up. "So far as I know, she has the normal share of high spirits, and a young and pretty girl's desire to flirt and trifle more than is modest, to play the game dangerously from time to time. That is no more than healthy. Let us say she is not tedious and leave it at that?"
Monk laughed in spite of himself. The evening had been most enjoyable, and as far as he could see of no use whatever to Rathbone. He thanked Mr. Burnham sincerely and remained another half hour listening to irrelevant stories, then went home without removing the cat hairs, in case it should offend Mr. Burnham, and considered his tactics for the morrow.
He spent Sunday morning equally fruitlessly. He called upon two or three acquaintances, who merely confirmed what he had already heard. One of them owned a gambling house in the less-reputable part of the West End and occasionally loaned money to gentlemen temporarily embarrassed in a financial way. He usually knew who owed money, and to whom. He was expert in assessing precisely what any given man was worth. He was better at it than many a legitimate banker. He had never heard of Killian Melville, and he knew of Barton Lambert only by repute. Neither of them owed a halfpe
Another acquaintance, who owned a couple of brothels in the Haymarket area and was familiar with the tastes and weaknesses of many of the leading gentlemen in society, also knew neither man.
By early afternoon Monk was irritable, chilly in the intermittent showers of rain, and profoundly discouraged. It appeared Killian Melville was simply a young man who had made a rash offer of marriage, perhaps in a moment of physical passion, and now regretted it and was foolish enough to believe he could walk away unscathed. Perhaps he had prevailed upon her virtue and now despised her, wondering if he were the first or would be the last. It was a shabby act, and Monk had little patience with it. If one wished to satisfy an appetite, there were plenty of women available without using a respectable girl who believed you loved her. She would be ruined in reputation, whatever her emotional distress or lack of it. Melville must know that as well as anyone.
And yet as Monk fastened his coat more tightly at the neck and put his head down as the rain grew harder, he could not think that the man who had designed the building he had walked through yesterday, so full of soaring lines and radiant light, would be such a hypocrite or a coward as to run away from responsibility for his own acts. Could a man be of such a double nature?
Monk had no idea. He had never known a creative genius. Some people made excuses for artists, poets and composers of great music. They believed such men did not have to live by the standards of ordinary people. That thought provoked in him a deep disgust. It was fundamentally dishonest.
Was it possible Melville was merely naive, as he had told Rathbone, and had been maneuvered into a betrothal he had never intended? Was the marriage really unbearable to him?
Monk stepped off the pavement over the swirling gutter and ran across the cobbled street as a hansom driver came around the corner at a canter and swore at him for getting in the way. The wheels threw an arc of water over his legs, soaking his trousers, and he swore back at the man fluently.
He reached the far side and brushed the excess water and mud off himself. He was filthy.
How would he feel in Melville's place? Suddenly his imagination was vivid! He would no longer have any privacy. He could not do so simple a thing as decorate his room as he wished, have the windows open or closed according to his own whim, eat what and when he liked. And these things were trivial. What about the enormous financial responsibility? And the even greater emotional commitment to spend the rest of his life with one other human being, to put up with her weaknesses, her foibles, her temper or occasional stupidity, to be tender to her needs, her physical illness or emotional wounds and hungers! How could any sane person undertake such a thing?
But then the other person would also promise the same to him. It would be better than passion, stronger than the heat of any moment, more enduring. It would be the deepest of friendships; it would be the kindness which can be trusted, which need not be earned every day, the generosity which shares a triumph and a disaster with equal loyalty, which will listen to a tale of injury or woe as honestly as a good joke. Above all it could be closeness to one who would judge him as he meant to be, not always as he was, and who would tell him the truth, but gently.
He was walking more and more rapidly. He was now in Woburn Place, and the bare trees of Tavistock Square were ahead of him. The sky was clearing again. A brougham swept by, horses stepping out briskly. Two young women walking together laughed loudly and one clasped the other by the arm. A small boy threw a stick for a black-and-white puppy that went racing after it, barking excitedly. "Casper!" the boy shouted, his voice high with delight. "Casper! Fetch!"