The answer came immediately, again with a lift of pride and shadow of puzzlement.
'She is in India. Both my daughters are there. Constance is married to a captain in the army. She had the most terrible time during the Mutiny three years ago. She writes often, telling us about life there.' She looked not at Hester, but into the dancing flames of the fire. 'She says things can never be the same again. She used to love it, even when it was most boring for many of the wives. During the heat of the summer the women would all go up to the hill stations, you know?' It was a rhetorical question. She did not expect Hester to have any knowledge of such things. She had forgotten she had been an army nurse, or perhaps she did not understand what it really meant. It was another world from hers.
'They can never trust now as they used to. It has all changed,' she went on. 'The violence was unimaginable, the torture, the massacres.”
She shook her head. 'But of course they can't come home. It is their duty to remain.' She said it without bitterness or the slightest resentment. Duty was a strength and a reason for life, as well as its most rigid boundary.
'I understand,' Hester said quickly. She did. Her mind flew back to officers she had known in the Crimea, men, clever ones and foolish ones, to whom duty was as simple as a flame. At no matter what cost, personal or public, even when it was painful or ridiculous, they would never think of doing other than what was expected of them. At times she could have shouted at them, or even lashed out at them physically, through sheer frustration at their rigidity, at the sometimes unnecessary and terrible sacrifices. But she never ceased to admire it in them, whether at its noblest, or its most futile or both together.
Sylvestra must have caught something in her voice, a depth of answering emotion. She turned to look at her and for the first time smiled.
'Amalia is in India too, but her husband is in the Colonial Service, and she takes a great interest in the native peoples.' There was pride in her face, and amazement for a way of life she could hardly imagine.
'She has friends among the women. Sometimes I worry that she is very rash. I fear she intrudes where Westerners are not wanted, thinking she will alter things for the good, when in truth she may only do damage. I have written advising her, but she was never good at accepting counsel. Hugo is a nice young man, but too busy with his own tasks to pay sufficient attention to Amalia, I think.”
Hester's imagination pictured a rather stuffy man shuffling papers on a desk, while the spirited, more adventurous Amalia explored forbidden territories.
'I'm sorry they are not closer, to be with you at this time,' she said gently. She knew it would be months before any letters from Sylvestra with the news of her father's death could circle round the Cape of Good Hope and reach India, and the answers return to England. No wonder Sylvestra was so terribly alone.
Mourning was always a time for family closeness. Outsiders, no matter how excellent their friendship, felt intrusive, and did not know what to say.
'Yes…' Sylvestra agreed, almost as if speaking to herself. 'I would dearly like their company, especially Amalia. She is always so… positive.' She shivered a little, in spite of the warmth of the room, the heavy curtains drawn across the windows against the rain and the dark, the empty tea tray with the remains of crumpets and butter. 'I don't know what to expect… the police again, I suppose. More questions, for which I have no answers.”
Hester knew, but it was kinder not to reply. Answers would be found, ugly things uncovered, even if only because they were private, and perhaps foolish or shabby. They would not necessarily include finding the man who had murdered Leighton Duff.
Again Rhys ate only beef tea and a little dry toast. Hester read to him for a while, and he fell asleep early. Hester herself did not put out her light until after midnight, and awoke again in the dark with a ripple of horror going over her like an icy draught. The bell had not fallen, yet she rose immediately and went through to Rhys's room.
The fire was still burning well and the flames cast plenty of light.
Rhys was half sitting against the pillows, his eyes wide open and filled with blind, unspeakable terror. His face was drenched in sweat.
His lips were stretched back over his teeth. His throat convulsed over and over again, and he seemed unable to draw breath except in gasps between each soundless scream. His splinted hands were held up near his face to ward off the terror his mind saw.
'Rhys!' she cried, going towards him quickly.
He did not hear her. He was still asleep, isolated in some terrible world of his own.
'Rhys!' she repeated more loudly. 'Wake up! Wake up you are safe at home!”
Still his mouth was working in the fearful screams which racked his body. He could not see or hear Hester, he was in a narrow alley somewhere in St. Giles, seeing agony and murder.
'Rhys!' Now she shouted peremptorily and put out her hand to touch his wrist. She was prepared for him to strike at her, seeing her as part of the attack. 'Stop it! You are at home! You are safe!' She closed her hand over his wrist and shook him. His body was rigid, muscles locked. His nightshirt was wet through with sweat. 'Wake up!' she shouted at him. 'You must wake up!”
He started to shake, violently, moving the whole bed back and forth.
Then slowly he crumpled up and silent sobs shuddered through him, tears running down his face, the breath dragging in his throat.
She did not even think about it; she sat on the bed and reached out her arms and held him, touching his thick hair gently, smoothing it off his brow, following the line of it on the nape of his neck.
She sat there for a length of time she did not' measure It could have been as long as an hour.
Then at last gently she let him go and eased herself away to stand up.
She must change the damp and crumpled linen and make sure that in his distress he had not torn or moved any of his bandages.
'I'm going to fetch clean sheets,' she said quietly. She did not want him to think she was simply walking away. 'I'll be back in a moment or two.”
She returned to find him staring at the door, waiting for her. She put the linen down on the chair and moved over to help him on to one side of the bed so she could begin changing it around him. It was never an easy task, but he was too ill to get out altogether and sit in a chair.
She was uncertain what internal injuries might be strained, or what wounds Dr. Wade had seen and she had not, which might be broken open.
It took her some time, and he was obviously in considerable pain and she had to be patient, working around him, smoothing and straightening, rolling up and unfolding again. At last it was re-made and he lay exhausted. But his nightshirt had to be changed as well. The one he was wearing was soiled not only with sweat but with spots of blood. She longed to redress the larger wounds, to make sure they were properly covered, but Dr. Wade had forbidden her to touch them, in case removal of the gauze should tear the healing tissue.
She held out the clean nightshirt.
He stared at it in her hands. Suddenly his eyes were defensive again, the trust was gone. Unconsciously he pressed backwards into the pillows behind him.
She picked up the light top quilt and spread it over him from waist to feet. She smiled at him very slightly, and guardedly, cautiously, he allowed her to pull the nightshirt up and off over his head. It hurt his shoulders to raise his arms, but he gritted his teeth and did not hesitate. She replaced it with the clean one and, fumbling guardedly under the sheets, pushed it down to cover him. Very carefully she smoothed the sheet and blankets again, and at last he relaxed.
She re-stoked the fire, then sat down in the chair and waited until he should fall asleep.
In the morning she was tired and extremely stiff herself. She never got used to sleeping in a chair, for all the times she had done it.
She told Sylvestra about the incident, but briefly, without the true horror of pain she had witnessed. It was only in order to make sure that Dr. Wade did indeed come, and not perhaps feel that Rhys was recovering and another patient might need him more.
'I must go to him,' Sylvestra said immediately, her face pinched with anguish. 'I feel so… useless! I don't know what to say or do to help him! I don't know what happened!' She stared at Hesteras if believing she could supply an answer.
There had never been an answer, not to Rhys, or to all the other young men who had seen atrocities more than
