and cool. 'A few weeks ago he had a very serious accident, about the time Joscelin Grey was killed.'
'Oh-I'm sorry. Is he ill now? He seemed perfectly recovered.'
'I think his body is quite mended,' Hester answered, and seeing the sudden gravity and concern in Imogen's face felt a gentleness herself. 'But he was struck very severely on the head, and he cannot remember anything before regaining his senses in a London hospital.'
'Not anything.' A flicker of amazement crossed Imogen's fece. 'You mean he didn't remember me-I mean us?'
'He didn't remember himself,' Hester said starkly. 'He did not know his name or his occupation. He did not recognize his own face when he saw it in the glass.'
'How extraordinary-and terrible. I do not always like myself completely-but to lose yourself! I cannot imagine having nothing at all left of all your past-all your experiences, and the reason why you love or hate things.'
'Why did you go to him, Imogen?'
'What? I mean, I beg your pardon?'
'You heard what I said. When we first saw Monk in St. Marylebone Church you went over to speak to him. You knew him. I assumed at the time that he knew you, but he did not. He did not know anyone.'
Imogen looked away, and very carefully took another sandwich.
'I presume it is something Charles does not know about,' Hester went on.
'Are you threatening me?' Imogen asked, her enormous eyes quite frank.
'No I am not!' Hester was annoyed, with herself for being clumsy as well as Imogen for thinking such a thing. 'I didn't know there was anything to threaten you with. I was going to say that unless it is unavoidable, I shall not tell him. Was it something to do with Joscelin Grey?'
Imogen choked on her sandwich and had to sit forward sharply to avoid suffocating herself altogether.
“No,'' she said when at last she caught her breath. “No it was not. I can see that perhaps it was foolish, on reflection. But at the time I really hoped-'
'Hoped«what? For goodness sake, explain yourself.'
Slowly, with a good deal of help, criticism and consolation from Hester, Imogen recounted detail by detail exactly what she had done, what she had told Monk, and why.
Four hours later, in the golden sunlight of early evening, Hester stood in the park by the Serpentine watching the light dimple on the water. A small boy in a blue smock carrying a toy boat under his arm passed by with his nursemaid. She was dressed in a plain stuff dress, had a starched lace cap on her head and walked as uprightly as any soldier on parade. An off-duty bandsman watched her with admiration.
Beyond the grass and trees two ladies of fashion rode along Rotten Row, their horses gleaming, harnesses jingling and hooves falling with a soft thud on the earth.
Carriages rattling along Knightsbridge towards Piccadilly seemed in another world, like toys in the distance.
She heard Monk's step before she saw him. She turned when he was almost upon her. He stopped a yard away; their eyes met. Lengthy politeness would be ridiculous between them. There was no outward sign of fear in him- his gaze was level and unflinching-but she knew the void and the imagination that was there.
She was the first to speak.
'Imogen came to you after my father's death, in the rather fragile hope that you might discover some evidence that it was not suicide. The family was devastated. First George had been killed in the war, then Papa had been shot in what the police were kind enough to say might have been an accident, but appeared to everyone to be suicide. He had lost a great deal of money. Imogen was trying to salvage something out of the chaos-for Charles's sake, and for my mother's.' She stopped for a moment, trying to keep her composure, but the pain of it was still very deep.
Monk stood perfectly still, not intruding, for which she was grateful. It seemed he understood she must tell it all without interruption in order to be able to tell it at all.
She let out her breath slowly, and resumed.
'It was too late for Mama. Her whole world had collapsed. Her youngest son dead, financial disgrace, and then her husband's suicide-not only his loss but the shame of the manner of it. She died ten days later-she was simply broken-' Again she was obliged to stop for several minutes. Monk said nothing, but stretched out his hand and held hers, hard, firmly, and the pressure of his fingers was like a lifeline to the shore.
In the distance a dog scampered through the grass, and a small boy chased a penny hoop.
'She came to you without Charles's knowing-he would not have approved. That is why she never mentioned it to you again-and of course she did not know you hadj forgotten. She says you questioned her about everything that had happened prior to Papa's death, and on successive meetings you asked her about Joscelin Grey. I shall tell you what she told me-'
A couple in immaculate riding habits cantered down the Row. Monk still held her hand.
'My family first met Joscelin Grey in March. They had none of them heard of him before and he called on them quite unexpectedly. He came one evening. You never met him, but he was very charming-even I can remember that from his brief stay in the hospital where I was in Scutari. He went out of his way to befriend other wounded men, and often wrote letters for those too ill to do it for themselves. He often smiled, even laughed and made small jokes. It did a great deal for morale. Of course his wound was not as serious as many, nor did he have cholera or dysentery.'
Slowly they began to walk, so as not to draw attention to themselves, close together.
She forced her mind back to that time, the smell, the closeness of pain, the constant tiredness and the pity. She pictured Joscelin Grey as she had last seen him, hobbling away down the steps with a corporal beside him, going down to the harbor to be snipped back to England.
'He was a little above average height,' she said aloud. 'Slender, rair-haired. I should think he still had quite a limp-I expect he always would have had. He told them his name, and that he was the younger brother of Lord Shelburne, and of course that he had served in the Crimea and been invalided home. He explained his own story, his time in Scutari, and that his injury was the reason he had delayed so long in calling on them.''
She looked at Monk's face and saw the unspoken question.
'He said he had known George-before the battle of the Alma, where George was killed. Naturally the whole family made him most welcome, for George's sake, and for his own. Mama was still deeply grieved. One knows with one's mind that if young men go to war there is always a chance they will be killed, but that is nothing like a preparation for the feelings when it happens. Papa had his loss, so Imogen said, but for Mama it was the end of something Jerribly precious. George was the youngest son and she always had a special feeling for him. He was-' She struggled with memories of childhood like a patch of sunlight in a closed garden. 'He looked the most like Papa-he had the same smile, and his hair grew the same way, although it was dark like Mama's. He loved animals. He was an excellent horseman. I suppose it was natural he should join the cavalry.
'Anyway, of course they did not ask Grey a great deal about George the first time he called. It would have been very discourteous, as if they had no regard for his own friendship, so they invited him to return any time he should find himself free to do so, and would wish to-'
'And he did?' Monk spoke for the first time, quietly, just an ordinary question. His face was pinched and there was a darkness in his eyes.
'Yes, several times, and after a while Papa finally thought it acceptable to ask him about George. They had received letters, of course, but George had told them very little of what it was really like.' She smiled grimly. 'Just as I did not. I wonder now if perhaps we both should have? At least to have told Charles. Now we live in different worlds: And I should be distressing him to no purpose.'
She looked beyond Monk to a couple walking arm in arm along the path.
'It hardly matters now. Joscelin Grey came again, and stayed to dinner, and then he began to tell them about the Crimea. Imogen says he was always most delicate; he never used unseemly language, and although Mama was naturally terribly upset, and grieved to hear how wretched the conditions were, he seemed to have a special sense of how much he could say without trespassing beyond sorrow and admiration into genuine horror. He spoke of battles, but he told them nothing of the starvation and the disease. And he always spoke so well of George, it made
