Weighed in the Balance

3

HESTER LATTERLY, about whom Monk and Rathbone had both thought so recently, was unaware of their involvement in the case of Princess Gisela and the Countess Rostova, although she had heard murmurs of the affair in general.

Since her return from nursing in the Crimea with Florence Nightingale, she had held several posts in that profession, mostly private. She had just completed the care of an elderly lady recuperating from a nasty fall, and was presently not engaged. She was delighted to receive a call from her friend and sometimes patroness Lady Callandra Daviot. Callandra was well into her fifties. Her face was full of wit and character, but even her most ardent admirer would not have said she was beautiful. There was too much strength in her, and far too much eccentricity. She had a very agreeable lady’s maid who had years ago given up trying to do anything elegant with Callandra’s hair. If it stayed more or less within its pins, that was victory enough.

On this day she was even untidier than usual, but she swept in with an armful of flowers and an air of excited purpose.

“For you, my dear,” she announced, placing the flowers on the side table in Hester’s small sitting room. There was no purpose in Hester’s renting more spacious accommodation, even could she have afforded it; she was hardly ever there. “Although I hope you will not be here long enough to enjoy them. I simply brought them because they are so lovely.” Callandra sat down on the nearest chair, her skirts crooked, hoops at an angle. She slapped at the skirt absently and it remained where it was.

Hester sat opposite her, listening with attention she did not have to feign. “Thank you anyway,” she said, referring to the flowers.

“There is a case I should be most grateful if you would take. A young man with whom I have a very slight acquaintance. He first introduced himself to me as Robert Oliver, an Anglicism he affected, possibly because he was born in this country and feels utterly at home here. However, his name is actually Ollenheim, and his parents, the Baron and Baroness, are expatriates from Felzburg …”

“Felzburg?” Hester said in surprise.

Callandra’s face suddenly lost all its humor and became filled with profound pity. “Young Robert contracted a very serious illness, a fever which, when the worst of it passed, left him without movement in his lower body and legs. His natural functions are unimpaired, but he is helpless to leave his bed and needs the constant care of a nurse. He has been attended so far by the doctor daily, and his mother, and the household servants, but a professional nurse is required. I took the liberty of suggesting your name for a number of reasons.”

Hester listened in silence, but with growing interest.

“To begin with, and most important,” Callandra enumerated earnestly, “Robert may be severely damaged. It is even conceivable he may not regain the use of his legs. If that is so, it is going to be desperately difficult for him to face. He will need all the help and the wisdom that can be offered him. You, my dear, have had much experience, as an army nurse, of caring for young men fearfully disabled. You will know, as much as anyone can, how best to help him.

“My second reason is that some time ago, during the time we were investigating the murder of poor Prudence Barrymore”—again Callandra’s face darkened with memory of pain, and of love—“I spent a little time with Victoria Stanhope and learned that the child was a victim of incest, and then of a badly performed abortion, as a result of which she is internally damaged for life. She is in almost continuous pain, at times greater than others, and has no prospects of marriage because she will be unable to fulfill its physical obligations.” She held up her hand to prevent Hester from interrupting. “I was with her when she and young Robert met, and they were instantly attracted. Of course, at that time I hastened her away before further tragedy could ensue. Now matters are different. Robert is also damaged. Her courage and innocence may be the thing which will best help him to come to terms with his altered situation.”

“And if he recovers?” Hester said quickly. “But she falls in love with him? And she will never be whole! What then?”

“I don’t know,” Callandra admitted. “But if he does not, and she is the person who could lift him from despair, and by so doing, believe in her own value and purpose, how terrible that we should have allowed our fear to have prevented it.”

Hester hesitated, torn between the two dangers.

Callandra had had far longer to weigh the issues. There was no indecision in her eyes.

“I truly believe there is more regret over what we fail to do than over decisions made which turned out badly,” she said with conviction. “Are you willing to try, at least?”

Hester smiled. “And your third reason?”

“You need a position!” Callandra said simply.

It was true. Since her father’s ruin and death Hester had no means of her own, and she refused to be dependent upon her brother; therefore, she must earn her own living as her skills allowed. Not that it was an issue she resented. It gave her both independence and interest, both of which she prized highly. The financial urgency of it was less pleasant, but common to most people.

“I should be happy to do what I can,” she said sincerely. “If you feel that Baron and Baroness Ollenheim would find me acceptable.”

“I have already seen to that,” Callandra replied decisively. “The sooner you can take up the position, the better.”

Hester rose to her feet.

“Oh,” Callandra added with bright eyes. “By the way, Oliver Rathbone has taken up the case of the Countess Rostova.”

“What?” Hester stopped abruptly and stood motionless. “I beg your pardon. What did you say?”

Callandra repeated herself.

Hester swung around to stare at her.

“Then I can only believe there must be more to the case than there seems. And pray so!”

“And William is investigating it for him,” Callandra added. “Which, of course, is how I know about it.” Callandra was also William Monk’s patroness, tiding him through his leaner times.

Hester merely said “I see.” But she did not see at all. “Then, if you are sure the Baron and Baroness Ollenheim are expecting me, I had better pack a case and make myself available.”

“I shall be happy to take you,” Callandra said generously. “The house is on Hill Street, near Berkeley Square.”

“Thank you.”

Callandra had prepared the way well, and Baron and Baroness Ollenheim welcomed Hester’s professional services. The burden of caring for their son had fallen heavily upon them, as their emotions were so deeply involved. Hester found the Baroness Dagmar a charming woman who in times less stressful, when not exhausted and strained with grief and anxiety, would have been beautiful. Now she was pale with fatigue, sleepless nights had left deep shadows under her eyes, and she had no time or interest to dress more than simply.

Baron Bernd was also disturbed by feelings which harrowed him profoundly, but he made a greater effort to conceal them, as was expected of a man and an aristocrat. Nevertheless, he was more than courteous to Hester and permitted her to see his relief at her presence.

Robert Ollenheim himself was a young man of perhaps twenty, with a fair face and thick, light brown hair which fell forward over the left side of his brow. In normal health he would have been most handsome; lying wasted by the recent fever, weak and still aching, he nevertheless managed a certain grace in greeting Hester when she made herself known to him and began her duties. He must have been aware of the seriousness of his situation, and the possibility of permanent disability had to have crossed his mind, but no mention was made of it.

She found caring for him easy in its physical work. It was simply a matter of nursing, keeping him as comfortable as possible, trying to reduce his distress and discomfort, seeing that he drank broth and beef tea frequently and gradually began to take greater nourishment. The doctor called very regularly, and she was left no important decisions to make. The difficulty lay in the concern for him and the fear that lay at the back of all their minds as to how complete his recovery would be. No one spoke of paralysis, but as each day went by, and still he felt no sensation and gained no power of movement below the waist, the fear grew.

She did not forget the extraordinary case with which Monk and Rathbone were involved, and once or twice she overheard Bernd and Dagmar discussing it when they were not aware she was close by.

“Will Prince Friedrich’s death make a great deal of political difference?” she asked one day about a week after her arrival. She and Dagmar were putting away clean linen the laundry maid had brought up. Ever since she first met Monk and became involved in the murder of Joscelin Gray, she had asked questions almost as of second nature.

“I think so,” Dagmar replied, examining the embroidered corner of a pillow slip. “There is considerable talk of uniting all the German states under one crown, which would naturally mean our being swallowed up. We are far too small to become the center of such a new nation. The King of Prussia has ambitions in that direction, and, of course, Prussia is very military. And then there are Bavaria, Moravia, Hannover, Bohemia, Holstein, Westphalia, Würtemberg, Saxony, Silesia, Pomerania, Nassau, Mecklenburg and Schwerin, not to mention the Thuringian states, the Electorate of Hesse, and above all Brandenburg. Berlin is an immensely tedious city, but it is very well placed to become the capital for all of us.”

“You mean all the German states as one country?” Hester had never really thought of such a thing.

“There is much talk of it. I don’t know if it will ever happen.” Dagmar picked out another of the slips. “This needs mending. If one caught a finger in this it would ruin it. Some of us are for unification, others against. The King is very frail now, and possibly will not live more than another year or two. Then Waldo will be king, and he is in favor of unification.”

“Are you?” Perhaps it was an intrusive question, but she asked it before thinking. It seemed to spring naturally from the statement.

Dagmar hesitated several moments before replying, her hands motionless on the linen, her brow furrowed.

“I don’t know,” she said finally. “I’ve thought about it. One has to be reasonable about these things. To begin with, I was utterly against it. I wanted to keep my identity.” She bit her lip, as if laughing at her own foolishness, looking directly at Hester. “I know that may seem silly to you, since you are British and at the heart of the largest empire in the world, but it mattered to me.”

“It’s not foolish at all,” Hester said sincerely. “Knowing who you are is part of happiness.” Unexpectedly, a sharp thought of Monk came to her mind, because he had been injured three years before in an accident and had lost every shred of his memory. Even his own face in the glass woke no familiarity in him at all. She had watched him struggle with remnants of his past as they flashed to his mind, or some event forced upon him evidence of who and what he had been. Not all of it was pleasant or easy to accept. Even now it was only fragments, pieces here and there. The vast bulk of it was closed within recesses of his mind he could not reach. He felt too vulnerable to ask questions of those few who knew anything. Too many of them were enemies, rivals, or simply people he had worked with and ignored. “To know your own roots is a great gift,” she said aloud. “To tear them up, willingly, is an injury one might not survive.”

“It is also an injury to refuse to acknowledge change,” Dagmar answered thoughtfully. “And to hold out against unification, if the other states seem to want it, could leave us very isolated. Or far worse than that, it could provoke war. We could be swallowed whether we want it or not.”

“Could you?” Hester took the slip from Dagmar and placed it in a separate pile.

“Oh, yes.” The Baroness picked up the last sheet. “And far better to be allied as part of a larger Germany in general than to be taken over in war as a subject province of Prussia. If you know anything of Prussian politics, you’d think the same, believe me. The King of Prussia isn’t bad at heart, but even he can’t keep the army under control—or the bureaucrats or the landowners. That is a lot of what the revolutions of ’48 were all about, a sort of middle class trying to obtain some rights, some freedom for the press and literature, and a wider franchise.”

“In Prussia or in your country?”

“Everywhere, really.” Dagmar shrugged. “There were revolutions in just about every part of Europe that year. Only France seemed to have succeeded in winning anything. Certainly Prussia didn’t.”

“And you think that if you try to remain independent there could be war?” Hester was horrified. She had seen too much of the reality of war, the broken bodies on the battlefield, the physical agony, the maiming and the death. For her, war was not a political idea but an endless unfolding and living of pain, exhaustion, fear, hunger, and heat in the summer and cold even to death in the winter. No sane person would enter into it unless occupation and slavery were the only alternatives.

“There might.” Dagmar’s voice came from far away, although she was standing only a yard from Hester in the corridor with the sunlit landing beyond. But Hester’s mind had been in the rat-infested, disease-ridden hospital in Scutari, and in the carnage of Balaclava and Sebastopol. “There are many people who make money from war,” Dagmar went on somberly, the sheet forgotten. “They see it primarily as an opportunity to profit from the sale of guns and munitions, horses, rations, uniforms, all kinds of things.”

Unconsciously, Hester winced. To wish such a horror upon any people in order to make money from it seemed like the ultimate wickedness.

Dagmar’s fingers examined the hem of the sheet absent-mindedly, tracing the embroidered flowers and monogram.

“Please God it won’t come to that. Friedrich was for independence, even if he had to fight for it, but I don’t know who else is who could lead us. Anyway, it doesn’t matter anymore. Friedrich is dead, and he wouldn’t have returned without Gisela. And it seems as if the Queen would not have allowed him back with her, no matter what the cost or the alternative.”

Hester had to ask.

“Would he ever have gone without her—if it were to save his country, to keep Felzburg independent?”

Dagmar looked at her steadily, her face suddenly tense, her eyes very level.

“I don’t know. I used to think not … but I don’t know.”

A day went by, and another, and another. Robert’s fever was gone now. He was beginning to eat proper meals, and to enjoy them. But he still had no sensation or power of movement below the waist.

Bernd came every evening to sit and talk with his son. Hester naturally did not remain in the room, but she knew from the remarks she overheard, and from Robert’s own attitude after his father had left, that Bernd was still, at least outwardly, convinced that complete healing was only a matter of waiting.

Dagmar kept up the same manner on the surface, but when she left Robert’s room and was alone with Hester on the landing, or downstairs, she allowed her anxiety to show through.

“It seems as if he is not getting any better,” she said tensely on the fourth day after their discussion of German reunification politics. Her eyes were dark with anxiety, her shoulders stiff under her fine woolen day bodice with its white lawn collar. “Am I expecting too much too quickly? I thought he would have been able to move his feet now. He just lies there. I dare not even ask what he is thinking.” She was desperate for Hester to reassure her, waiting for the word that would ease her fears, at least for a while.

Was it kinder, or crueler, to say something that was not true? Surely trust also mattered? In the future it might matter even more.

“Perhaps you shouldn’t ask,” Hester replied. She had seen many men face maiming and loss of limbs, disfigurement of face or body. There were things for which no one could offer help. There was nothing to do but stand and wait for the time or the depth of pain when another person was needed. It might come sooner or later. “He will talk about it when he is ready. Perhaps a visitor would take his mind from thinking of it. I believe Lady Callandra mentioned a Miss Victoria Stanhope, who has suffered some misfortune herself and might be of encouragement …” She did not know how to finish.

Dagmar looked startled and seemed about to dismiss the idea.

“Someone who is less close, less obviously anxious, may be helpful,” Hester urged.

“Yes …” Dagmar agreed hopefully. “Yes, perhaps she may. I shall ask him.”

The following day, Victoria Stanhope, still thin, still pale and moving with slight awkwardness, paid a call upon Hester, who conducted her to Robert.

Dagmar had remained uncertain about the suitability of a young, single woman’s visiting in such circumstances, but when she saw Victoria, her shyness and her obvious disability, she changed her mind. And apart from that, the girl’s dress immediately proclaimed her lack of means or social position. The fact that she spoke with dignity and intelligence made her otherwise most agreeable. The name Stanhope was familiar to Dagmar, but she did not immediately place it.

Victoria stood on the landing beside Hester. Now that the moment had come, her courage failed her.

“I can’t go in,” she whispered. “What can I say to him? He won’t remember me, and if he does, it will only be that I rebuffed him. Anyway”—she gulped and turned, white-faced, to Hester—“what about my family? He’ll remember that, and he won’t want to have anything to do with me. I can’t—”

“Your family’s situation is nothing to do with you,” Hester said gently, putting her hand on Victoria’s arm. “Robert is far too fair to make such a judgment. Go in there thinking of his need, not your own, and I promise you, you will have nothing at the end which you can look back on with regret.” The moment she had said it, she realized how bold she had been, but Victoria’s smile prevented her from withdrawing it.

Victoria took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh, then knocked on the door again.

“May I come in?”

Robert looked at her with curiosity. Hester had prepared him for the visit, naturally, and had been surprised how clearly he had recalled their one brief encounter over a year before.

“Please do, Miss Stanhope,” he said with a slight smile. “I apologize for the hospitality I can offer, but I am at a slight disadvantage right at the moment. Please sit down. That chair”—he pointed to the one beside the bed—“is quite comfortable.”

She walked in and sat down. For a moment her fingers moved as if to rearrange her skirts. The new concertina-type steel hoops could be quite awkward, even if they were better than the old bone ones. Then, with an effort of will, she ignored them and let them fall as they would.

Hester waited for the inevitable “How are you feeling?” Even Robert looked prepared for the traditional answer.

“I imagine now you are over the fever and most of the pain, you are thoroughly bored,” Victoria said with a little shake of her head.

Robert was startled, then his face broke into a wide smile.

“I didn’t expect you to say that,” he admitted. “Yes, I am. And terribly tired of assuring everyone that I feel all right—far, far better than I did a week ago. I read, of course, but sometimes I can hear the silence prickling in my ears, and I find my attention wandering. I want a sound of some sort, and something that responds to me. I am weary of being done to, and not doing.” He blushed suddenly, realizing how forthright he had been to a young woman who was almost a complete stranger. “I’m sorry! You didn’t come here out of kindness just to hear me complain. Everyone has been very good, really.”

“Of course they have,” she agreed, smiling back, tentatively at first. “But this is something they cannot alter. What have you been reading?”

“Dickens’s Hard Times,” he replied with a grimace. “I admit, it doesn’t cheer me much. I care about its people,” he added quickly, “but I’m not happy for them. I go to sleep and dream I live in Coketown.”

“May I bring you something different?” she offered. “Perhaps something happy? Are you”—she drew a deep breath—“are you familiar with Edward Lear’s Book of Nonsense?”

His eyebrows rose. “No. But I think I might like it. It sounds like an excellent refuge from the world of Coketown.”

“It is,” she promised. “You’ll find in it the Dong with the Luminous Nose, and Jumblies, who went to sea in a sieve, and all sorts of other oddities, like Mr. Daddy Longlegs and Mr. Floppy Fly, who played at battlecock and shuttledore in the sand.”

“Please do bring it.”

“And there are drawings, of course,” she added.

Hester was satisfied. She turned and tiptoed away and went down the stairs to where Dagmar was waiting in the hall.

Victoria Stanhope visited again, on two more occasions, staying longer each time.

“I think she does him good,” Dagmar said when the maid had shown Victoria upstairs on the fourth time she called. “He seems very pleased to see her, and she is a most agreeable child. She would be quite pretty, if she were—” She stopped. “Oh, dear. That is very uncharitable of me, isn’t it?” They were standing in the conservatory in the early autumn sun. It was a charming room, full of white-painted wrought iron furniture and shaded by a mixture of potted palms and large-leafed tropical plants. The air was filled with the sweetness of several late, heavily scented lilies. “That was a terrible business about her family,” she added sadly. “I expect it has ruined her chances, poor thing.”

Naturally, she was referring to Victoria’s chances of marriage. There was no other desirable life open to a young woman of breeding, unless she had a great deal of money, or some remarkable talent, or excellent health and a burning desire for good works. Hester did not tell her that Victoria’s chances for any of these things had been ruined long before her family’s disgrace. That was Victoria’s secret to keep or to tell as she wished. Were Hester in her place, she felt she would never tell anyone at all. It was about as private a tragedy as could be imagined.

“Yes,” she said bluntly. “I expect it has.”

“How very unfair.” Dagmar shook her head slightly. “You never know what is going to happen, do you? Six weeks ago I could not have imagined Robert’s illness. Now I don’t know how much it will change our lives.” She was not looking at Hester, perhaps deliberately. After only a moment’s hesitation, as though she did not want to allow time for an answer, she hurried on. “Poor Princess Gisela must feel the same. This time last year she had all she cared about. I think every woman in the world envied her, at least a little.” She smiled. “I know I did. Don’t we all dream of having a handsome and charming man love us so passionately he would give up a kingdom and a throne simply to be with us?”

Hester thought back to being eighteen, and the dreams she had had then.

“Yes, I suppose so,” she said reluctantly, oddly defensive of the girl she had been. She had felt so wise and invulnerable, and she had been so naive.

“Most of us settle for reality,” Dagmar went on. “And find it really quite good in the end. Or we make it good. But it is still natural to dream sometimes. Gisela made her dreams come true … until this spring, that is. Then Friedrich died, which left her desolated. To have had such a … a unity!” She turned to Hester. “You know they were never apart? He loved her so much he never grew tired of watching her, listening to her, hearing her laugh. He still found her just as fascinating, after twelve years.”

“It would be natural to envy that,” Hester said honestly. She would not have found it easy to watch such happiness and not wish it for herself. And if she had at one time been in love with the Prince, it would never really stop hurting. She would wonder why she had not been able to awake that love in him, what was lacking in her. What gaiety or charm, what tenderness or quickness to understand, what generosity or honor did she fail to have? Or was it simply that she was physically not pleasing enough, either to look at or in those areas of intimacy of love in which her only experience lay in the imagination and the longing of dreams? Was all that the wound which had festered in Zorah Rostova all these years, and perhaps driven her a little mad?

Dagmar was absentmindedly picking off the occasional dead leaf and fiddling with the bark around the palms.

“What was the Prince like?” Hester asked, trying to picture the romance.

“To look at?” Dagmar asked with a smile.

“No, I meant as a person. What did he like to do? If I were to spend an evening in his company—at dinner, for example—what would I remember most about him?”

“Before he met Gisela, or afterwards?”

“Both! Yes, tell me both.”

Dagmar concentrated her memory, forgetting the plants. “Well, before Gisela, you would think first how utterly charming he was.” She smiled as she recollected. “He had the most beautiful smile. He would look at you as if he were really interested in all you said. He never seemed to be merely polite. It was almost as if he were half expecting you to turn out to be special, and he did not want to miss any opportunity to find out. I think what you might remember afterwards was the certainty that he liked you.”

Hester found herself smiling too. The warmth rippled through her at the idea of meeting someone who gave so much of himself. No wonder Gisela had loved him, and how devastated she must feel now. And on top of the loneliness and the loss which darkened everything had come this nightmare accusation. What on earth had possessed Rathbone to take up Zorah’s case? His knighthood had gone to his wits. When the Queen touched him on the shoulder with the sword she must have pricked his brain.

“And after he met Gisela …” Dagmar went on.

Hester jerked her attention back. She had forgotten she had asked that question also.

“Yes?” she said, trying to sound attentive.

“I suppose he was different,” Dagmar responded thoughtfully. “He was hurt that people wouldn’t accept Gisela, because he loved her so much. But he was never so very close to his family, especially his mother. He was sad going into exile. But I think he believed in his heart that one day they would want him back and then they would see Gisela’s worth and accept her.” She looked along the passage between the leaves and fronds towards the windows. “I remember the day he left. People were lining the streets. A lot of women were weeping, and they all wished him well, and cried ’God bless you!’ and waved kerchiefs and threw flowers.”

“And Gisela?” Hester asked curiously. “What did they feel about her?”

“They resented her,” Dagmar replied. “In a way, it was as if she had stolen him from us.”

“What is his brother like?”

“Waldo? Oh!” Dagmar laughed as if some memory amused her. “Much plainer, much duller, at first. He hasn’t any of Friedrich’s charm. But we grew to appreciate him. And, of course, his wife was always popular. It makes such a difference, you know. Perhaps in a way Ulrike was right. Whom we marry does alter us more than I used to think. In fact, only when you ask me do I realize how both brothers changed over the years. Waldo became stronger and wiser, and he learned how to win people’s affection. I think he’s happy, and that makes people kinder, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” Hester said with sudden feeling. “Yes, it does. What happened to Countess Rostova after Friedrich and Gisela left? Did she miss him terribly?”

Dagmar seemed surprised by the question.

“I don’t know. She did some very strange things. She went to Cairo and took a boat up the Nile to Karnak. But I don’t know if that had anything to do with Friedrich or if she would have gone anyway. I liked Zorah, but I can’t say I ever understood her. She had some most peculiar ideas.”

“For example?” Hester asked.

“Oh, about what women could achieve.” Dagmar shook her head, laughing a little. “She even wanted us all to band together and refuse to have relations with our husbands unless they gave us some sort of political power. I mean … she was quite mad! Of course, that was when she was very young.”

Something stirred in Hester’s memory. “Wasn’t there a Greek play about something like that?”

“Greek?” Dagmar was amazed.

“Yes, ancient Greek. All the women wanted to stop a war between two city-states … or something of the sort.”

“Oh. I don’t know. Anyway, it’s absurd.”

Hester did not argue, but she thought perhaps Zorah was not as alien to her own thoughts as she had supposed. She could imagine Rathbone’s reaction if she were to tell him of such an idea. It made her laugh even to contemplate it.

Dagmar mistook her reaction, and relaxed, smiling as well, forgetting old tragedies and present threats for a while as they walked the length of the conservatory and smelled the flowers and the damp earth, before Hester went to see how Robert was.

As usual, she climbed the stairs and walked across the landing almost silently. She stood outside Robert’s door, which was open about a foot, as was appropriate while he had a female visitor. She looked in, not wishing to interrupt should they be in conversation.

The room was full of sunlight.

Robert was lying back against his pillows, smiling, his attention entirely upon Victoria. She was reading to him from Malory’s Morte d’Arthur, the love story of Tristram and Isolde. Her voice was gentle and urgent, filled with tragedy, and yet there was a music in it which transcended the immediacy of the quiet sickroom in an elegant London house and became all magic and doomed love, a universal longing.

Hester crept away and went into the dressing room where she had a cot bed made up so she could be close to Robert and respond instantly if he called her. She busied herself with a few duties of tidying up, folding and putting away clothes the laundry maid had brought back.

It was fifteen minutes later when she tapped on the door between her room and Robert’s, and then gently pushed it open to see if perhaps he would like something to eat or a cup of tea.

“Next time I’ll read about the Siege Perilous and the coming of Sir Galahad,” Victoria said eagerly. “It is so full of courage and honor.”

Robert sighed. Hester could see his face, pale and pinched with a kind of sadness at the corners of his mouth. Or perhaps it was fear. Surely he must have realized that he might never recover. He had said nothing to her, but he must have lain alone in that silent, tidy room with everything placed there by his parents’ love. They were always just beyond the door watching, aching to help him, and knowing that nothing they could do did more than touch the surface. Underneath, the consuming fear, the darkness of dread, was beyond their ability to reach. It must never be out of their minds, and yet they dare not speak it.

Looking at Robert’s eyes with the shadowed skin around them, thin and bruised, Hester knew it was just under the surface of all he said.

“Good,” he replied politely to Victoria. “That’s very kind of you.”

She looked at him steadily.

“Would you rather that I didn’t?” she asked.

“No!” he responded quickly. “It sounds an excellent story. I think I probably know much of it already. It will be good to hear it again, as it should be told. You read so well.” His voice dropped on the last word, in spite of his effort to be courteous and appreciative.

“But you don’t want to listen to stories about heroes who can fight, and wield swords, and ride horses, when you are lying in bed and cannot move,” Victoria said with shattering bluntness.

Hester felt a chill run through her as if she had swallowed ice.

Robert’s face went white. He was still for so long she was afraid that when he did speak he would say something so violent it would be irretrievable.

If Victoria was afraid, she hid it superbly. Her back was ramrod stiff, her thin shoulders straight, her head high.

“There were times when I didn’t want to either,” she said quite calmly, but there was a tremor in her voice. The memory hurt.

“You can walk!” The words tore out of Robert as if speaking them caused him a physical pain.

“I couldn’t for a long time,” she replied, now almost matter-of-factly. “And now, when I do, it still hurts.” Her voice was trembling, and there was a flush of shame and misery on her cheeks, the delicate bones showing under the too-thin flesh. “I walk badly. I’m clumsy. I knock things. You don’t hurt.”

“I …” He started to retaliate, then realized he had no grounds. His pain of the body was almost gone. Now it was all the desperate, aching, helpless pain of the mind, the knowledge of imprisonment with his lifeless legs.

Again Victoria said nothing.

“I’m sorry for your pain,” he said at last. “But I would rather hurt, and be able to move, even awkwardly, than spend the rest of my life lying here like a cabbage.”

“And I would rather be able to lie beautifully on a chaise longue.” Her voice was thick with emotion. “I’d like to be loved by an honorable family, knowing I would always be cared for, never cold or hungry or alone. And I would love not to dread the pain coming back. But we can neither of us choose. And perhaps you will walk again. You don’t know.”

Again he was silent for a long time.

Behind the door, Hester dared not make the slightest movement.

“Will your pain get better?” he said at last.

“No. I have been told not,” she replied.

He drew a breath as if to ask her more, perhaps about her means and why she feared cold and hunger, but even in his distress he pulled back from such indelicacy.

“I’m sorry.”

“Of course you are,” she agreed. “And it doesn’t help in the slightest, knowing that you are not the only one to suffer. I know that. It doesn’t help me either.”

He leaned back on the pillows, turning away from her. The soft brown hair flopped over his brow and he ignored it. The sunlight made bright patterns on the floor.

“I suppose you are going to tell me it will get better with time,” he said bitterly.

“No, I’m not,” she contradicted him. “There are days when it’s better and days when it’s worse. But when you can’t live in your body, then you must make the best of living in your mind.”

This time he did not reply, and eventually Victoria stood up. She half turned, and Hester could see in the light the tears on her face.

“I’m sorry,” the girl said gently. “I think perhaps I spoke when I should not have. It was too soon. I should have waited longer. Or perhaps I should not have been the one to say it at all. I did because it is too hard for those who love you so much and have never lain where you lie.” She shook her head a little. “They don’t know whether to be honest or not, or how to say it. They lie awake and hurt, helplessly, and weigh one choice against another, and cannot decide.”

“But you can?” He turned back to her, his face twisted with anger. “You have been hurt, so you know everything! You have the right to decide what to tell me, and how, and when?”

Victoria looked as if she had been slapped, but she did not retract.

“Will it be any different tomorrow or next week?” she asked, trying to steady her voice and not quite succeeding. She was standing awkwardly, and from the doorway Hester could see she was adjusting her weight to try to ease the pain. “You lie alone and wonder,” she went on. “Not daring to say the words, even in your mind, as if they could make it more real. Part of you has already faced it, another part is still screaming out that it is not true. And for you perhaps it won’t be. How much longer do you want to fight with yourself?”

He had no answer. He stared at her while the seconds ticked away.

She took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders, then limped to the door, bumping against the chair. She turned back to him.

“Thank you for sharing Tristram and Isolde with me. I enjoyed your company and your voyage of the mind with me. Good night.” And without waiting for him to respond, she pulled the door wider and went out into the landing and down the stairs.

Hester left Robert alone until it was time to take him his supper. He was lying exactly as Victoria had left him, and he looked wretched.

“I don’t want to eat,” he said as soon as he realized Hester was there. “And don’t tell me it would be good for me. It wouldn’t. I should choke.”

“I wasn’t going to,” she answered quietly. “I agree with you. I think perhaps you need to be alone. Shall I close the door and ask that no one disturb you?”

He looked at her with slight surprise.

“Yes. Yes, please do that.”

She nodded, closing one door and then the other, leaving only one small lamp burning. If he wept himself to sleep, he should at least have privacy to do it, and no one to know or remember it afterwards.