A Breach of Promise

chapter 2
While the thought of her had crossed Rathbone's mind during Lady Hardesty's ball, Hester Latterly herself was sitting quietly in the room she had been given for her accommodation during her stay in the elegant house at the northwest corner of Tavistock Square. It was the house of Lieutenant Gabriel Sheldon and his new young wife, Perdita. Lieutenant Sheldon had served honorably in the army in India. He had survived the hideous Mutiny, the siege of Cawnpore, and been one of the few survivors of that atrocity. He had remained in India afterwards, only to fall victim to appalling injuries just over two years later, in the winter of 1859-60. He had lost an arm, been severely disfigured, and at first was not expected to live.

By January his partial recovery was deemed sufficient for him to be shipped home to England and invalided out of the service. However, he was far from well enough to manage without skilled nursing, and the damage done to the skin and flesh of his face was such that it required a particular sensitivity, as well as medical knowledge of and experience with such wounds, to care for him. The stump of his arm was also far from satisfactory. The wound still was raw in places and not entirely free from infection. Even the danger of gangrene could not yet be disregarded.

Perdita Sheldon had been young and pretty and full of high spirits when her handsome husband of a few months had been obliged to return to his regiment and departed for India in the late autumn of 1856. She had wanted to go with him, but she had been newly with child and not at all well. She had miscarried in the spring. And then in 1857 the unimaginable had happened. The native sepoys had mutinied, and the revolt had spread like wildfire. Men, women and children were massacred. The tales that reached England were almost too monstrous to be believed. Daily, almost hourly, people rushed to read the latest news of the besieged cities of Cawnpore and Lucknow, the battles that raged across the country. The names of Nena Sahib, Koer Singh, Tanteea Topee, and the Ranee of Jhansi became familiar to everyone's lips. For two years the continent of India seethed with inconceivable violence. The question of whether Perdita Sheldon, or any other woman, should leave England to go there did not arise.

When it was over and calm had been restored once more, nothing could ever be the same again. The trust was shattered forever. Gabriel Sheldon was still on active service with his regiment, mostly in the rugged country of the northwest, near the borders of the Khyber Pass, leading through the Himalayas into Afghanistan. Perdita remained in England, dreaming of the day he would come back and she could once again have the life he had promised her, and which she had equally promised him.

The man who did return was unrecognizable to her either in body or in spirit. He was wounded too deeply, broken too far to pretend, and she had not the faintest idea even how to understand, let alone to help. She felt as abandoned as he did, confused and asked to bear a burden heavier than anything her life had designed her to face.

Hence Gabriel's brother, Athol Sheldon, had engaged the best nurse he could find, through the agency of his excellent man of affairs, and Hester Latterly was installed in Tavistock Square to nurse Gabriel for as long as should prove necessary.

Now it was late in the evening for the household of an invalid, and they had already dined: Perdita downstairs with her brother-in-law, Athol; Gabriel in his room with Hester's assistance. Hester herself had eaten only briefly, in the servants' hall, and then left as soon as his tray was ready to bring upstairs.

This was a time of day when she had no specific duties, simply to be available should she be required. Gabriel would ring the bell beside his bed when he was ready to retire or if he felt in need of assistance. There was no mending to do and her other duties had long since been attended to. She had borrowed a book from the library but was finding it tedious.

It was just after ten when at last the bell rang, and she was delighted to close the book, without bothering to mark her place, and walk the short distance along the landing to Gabriel's room. She knocked on the door.

"Come in!" he answered immediately.

It was the largest room on this floor, turned into a place where he could not only sleep at night but read or sleep during the day, and in time write letters, or receive visitors, and feel as much at ease as was possible in his circumstances.

She closed the door behind her. His bed was at the far end, a magnificent piece with elaborately carved mahogany headboard and footboard, and presently piled with pillows so he could sit up with some comfort. A special rest had been designed and made both to support his book or paper and to hold it open so he could read, or keep it from moving if he was writing. Fortunately he was right-handed, and it was his left arm he had lost.

But on first seeing him it was not the empty sleeve one noticed but the terrible disfigurement to his face, the left side of which was so deeply scarred from cheekbone to jaw that the flesh had not knitted and the features were distorted by the pull of the muscles and the healing skin. There was a raw red line which would never change, and white crisscross fine ridges where it had been stitched together hastily on the battlefield. After the initial shock it was possible to imagine quite easily how handsome he had been before the injury. It was a face almost beautiful in its simplicity of line, its balance between nose and cheek and jaw. The clear brow and hazel-gray eyes were unblemished even now. The dark brown, wavy hair was thick. His mouth was pinched with pain.

"I've had enough of this book," he said ruefully. "It's not very interesting."

"Neither was mine." She smiled at him. "I didn't even bother to mark my place. Would you like me to find you something else for tomorrow?"

"Yes, please, although I don't know what."

She took the book away and carefully removed the stand and folded it up. It was well designed and quite light to manage. His bed was rumpled where he had moved about restlessly. He was not only in physical distress from his amputation, the flesh not healing properly, the phantom pain of a limb which was not there; even more acute was the emotional distress of feeling both ugly and incomplete, powerless. He was without a role in a life which stretched interminably ahead of him containing nothing more than being dependent upon the help of others, an object of revulsion to the uninitiated in the horror of war, and one of pity to those familiar. Perhaps the greatest burden of all was the fact that he was unable to share his feelings with his wife. His existence shackled her to a man she was embarrassed even to look at, let alone touch. He had offered to release her from the marriage, as honor required. And as honor required, she had refused.

"Any subject in particular?" Hester asked, stretching out her hand to assist him in throwing back the covers and climbing from the bed so she could remake it. He was still quite often caught off balance by the alteration in his weight since the arm had gone.

He forced himself to smile, and she knew it was an effort, made for her sake, and perhaps from a lifetime of good manners.

"I can't think of anything," he admitted. "I've already read everything I knew I wanted to."

"I'll have to see if I can find you something quite different," she said conversationally, leaving him to sit on the bedside chair and beginning to strip off the bedclothes to replace them smoothly. She did not want to talk of trivialities to him, and yet it was so difficult to know what to say that would be honest and not hurtful, not intrusive into areas he was perhaps not yet ready to explore or to expose to anyone else. After all, she had been there only a few days and was in a position neither of family member and friend nor yet of servant. She already knew a great many of his intimate physical feelings and needs far better than anyone else, but could only guess at his history, his character or his emotions.

"What were you reading?" he asked, leaning back in the chair.

"A novel about people I could not bring myself to like," she replied with a laugh. "I am afraid I did not care in the slightest whether they ever found a solution to their problems or not. I think I shall try something factual next, perhaps a description of travels or places I shall almost certainly not visit."

He was silent for several moments.

She worked at the bed without haste.

"There's quite a lot about India," he said at last.

She caught an inflection in his voice of more than a mere remark. He must be appallingly lonely. He saw few people but Perdita, and in her visits neither of them knew what to say and struggled with platitudes, silences and then sudden rushes of words. He was almost relieved when she went, and yet was sharply aware of his isolation and overwhelming sense of despair and helplessness.

His brother, Athol, was what was known as a "muscular Christian"-a man given to unnatural ebullience, overbearingly vigorous views about health and morality, and an optimism which at times was beyond enduring. He refused to acknowledge Gabriel's pain or attempt the slightest understanding of it. Perhaps it frightened him, because his philosophy had no answer for it. It was something beyond anyone's control, and Athol's sense of safety came from his conviction that man was, or could and should become, master of his life.

"You must know India better than most writers," she said, forgetting the linen for a moment and looking at Gabriel, trying to read the expression in his eyes.

"Parts of it," he agreed, watching her equally intently, also seeking to judge her reaction, what he could tell her with some hope she would not be overwhelmed or distressed by events beyond her comprehension. "Are you interested in India?"

She was not particularly, but she was interested in him. She moderated the truth. "I am in current affairs, especially military ones."

His eyes clouded with doubt. "Military ones, Miss Latterly?" There was a hint of doubt in his voice now, as if he mistrusted her motives, fearing she was accommodating him. He must be very sensitive to condescension. "Have you a brother in the army?"

She smiled that he automatically assumed it would not be a lover. He must see her as too old for such a thing, or not comely enough. It was unthinking. He would not mean to hurt.

"No, Lieutenant, my elder brother is in business, and my younger brother was killed in the Crimea. My interest in military history is my own."

He knew he had been clumsy, even though he was not sure how. It was there in his cheeks and his eyes.

She realized how little she had told him of herself, and perhaps Athol had been equally unforthcoming. Possibly he considered her only a superior servant, and as long as her references were adequate, everything else was superfluous. One did not make friends of servants, especially temporary ones.

She smiled at him. "I have strong opinions about army medical matters, most of which have got me into trouble since I returned to England."

"Returned?" he said quickly. "From where?"

"The Crimea. Did Mr. Sheldon not tell you?"

"No." His interest was sharp now. "You were in the Crimea? That's excellent! No... he simply said you were the best person to nurse extreme injuries. He did not say why." He was leaning forward a little in his chair, his face eager. "Then you must have seen some terrible things, starvation and dysentery, cholera, smallpox... gangrene..."

"Yes," she agreed, pulling the last cover over the bed and straightening it. "And anger and despair, and incompetence almost beyond belief. And rats... thousands of rats." The memory of them was something which would never leave her, the sound of their fat bodies dropping off the walls to run among the men as they lay on floors awash with waste no one had had time or equipment to clean. It was that heavy plop and scamper which chilled her flesh even now, four years after and myriad experiences since.

He was silent while she helped him back into bed and smoothed the covers over him.

"No..." he said quickly as she made to remove the pillows. "Please leave them. I'm not ready to go to sleep yet."

She drew back.

"Miss Latterly!"

"Yes?"

"Tell me a little about the Crimea... if you don't mind, that is?"

She sat down in the chair and turned to face him.

"I expect much of it you are familiar with," she began, sending herself in memory back six years to early in the war. "Crowds of men, some new and eager, with no idea of what to expect, jostling together, full of courage and ready to charge the moment the order should be given. Your heart aches for them because you know how different it will all be in only a few weeks. No one else would believe such a short time could change anyone so much..."

"I would!" he said instantly, leaning forward to twist around towards her, losing his balance for a moment as instinctively he tried to put out the hand that was not there.

She ignored it and allowed him to right himself.

"Did you know that the whole siege of Cawnpore lasted only from June fifth to July seventeenth?" he asked. He was studying her to see what it meant to her. Had she read anything of the accounts of that unspeakable event? Did she have any idea what it meant? Most people had not. He had tried to speak of it to his brother, but Athol had nothing with which to compare it. Gabriel might as well have been speaking of creatures and events on another world. Such emotions were not describ-able; one had to live them. The thought of telling Perdita never entered his mind. She would be confused and distressed by the little she might grasp. His passion and grief would frighten her, perhaps revolt her. And yet bearing the knowledge alone was almost more than he could endure.

"I could not have timed it," she confessed. "But I know that events which destroy the flower of a generation and leave wounds which never heal can happen in a day or two."

He was uncertain. Hope flickered in his eyes that he might not be alone in his memories and his understanding.

"I saw the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava," she said very quietly. She found she still could not control her voice when she spoke of it. Even the words choked in her throat and brought a prickle of tears to her eyes and an ache to her chest The sweet, cloying smell of blood always brought it back to her, the drowning pain would never leave her, the bodies of so many mutilated and dying men, many of them barely into their twenties. Behind her closed eyelids she could see them bent in fantastic attitudes, trying to staunch their own wounds with scarlet hands.

Gabriel shook his head silently, and in that moment she knew he had seen things just as terrible. They brimmed behind his eyes, a haunting of the dreams, needing to be shared, not openly, but enough to break the terrible aloneness of being among those who were unaware, who could speak of it as history, as from the pages of a newspaper or a book, to whom the pain was only words.

She asked him the inevitable question. The Mutiny had ravaged all India from Calcutta and Delhi to the mountain passes into Afghanistan where the altitude thinned the air and peaks towered into the sky, the snow unmelted in millennia.

"Were you at Cawnpore?"

He nodded.

"In the relief column?"

"No... I..." He looked at her very steadily. "There were over nine hundred of us, counting women and children and civilians. I was one of the four people who survived." He looked at her, his eyes filled with tears.

What could one possibly say to that?

"I have never faced such savagery." She spoke very quietly, a simple, bare truth. "All the death I have seen has been either on the battlefield, incredibly stupid, senseless and pointless, men outmatched by numbers and by guns, ordered to charge impossible targets, but still soldiers even though their lives were squandered. Or people dying of starvation, cold and disease. Far more died of disease than of gunfire, you know." She shook her head a little. "Yes, of course you know. But I have never seen hatred like that, barbarism that would massacre every living soul. The siege of Sebastopol was at least... military."

He clung to her understanding, his eyes fixed on hers unwaveringly.

"It began on the fifth of June," he said. "The Mutiny had already been sweeping across the country since the end of February. There had been disturbances because of the cartridges in Meerut and Lucknow. You know all about the cartridges?" He was watching her face. "They were greased with animal fat. If it was pork it was unclean to the Muslim soldiers, and if it was beef it was blasphemous to the Hindus, to whom the cow is a sacred animal. On May seventh open mutiny broke out in Lucknow; on May sixteenth the sappers and miners mutinied in Meerut. By the twentieth it had spread to Murdan and Allygurh. The day after that we began our intrenchment at Cawnpore."

She nodded.

"On the twenty-fourth Gwalior Horse mutinied at Hattrass," he went on. "By the twenty-eighth it had spread to Nuseer-bad. On the thirty-first it was Shahjehanpoor. June third, Alzimghur, Seetapoor, Mooradabad and Neemuch. The day after, Benares and Jhansi. On the fifth it was us." He took a deep breath, but his voice did not alter. "I learned after that on the sixth it was Allahabad, Hansi and Bhurtpore. The following week, Jullunur, Fyzabad, Badulla Derai, Sultanpore, Futteh-pore, Pershadeepore... and on and on. I could name every garrison in India. There was no one to help us."

She could not imagine it. The isolation, the consuming terror must have been like a tidal wave, drowning everything.

He needed to know she could bear to hear it.

"How did it begin?" she asked. "Guns?"

"No. No, the whole of the native troops set fire to their lines and marched on the treasury, where they were joined by the troops of Nena Sahib... which is a name I can still hardly say." His face was tight with misery and the spectacle of horror was dark in his eyes.

She waited, sitting quite still.

"He had thousands of native soldiers," he went on after a moment. "We were only a couple of hundred, with three hundred women and as many children, and of course the civilian population, ordinary people: merchants and shopkeepers, servants, pensioners. General Sir Hugh Wheeler was in command. He ordered us to retreat to the barracks and military hospital. We couldn't possibly hold the whole town." He frowned, as if even now uncertain and puzzled. "Why he didn't choose the treasury instead I don't know. That was on high ground and had far more solid walls. In there we might have held out. I think... I think he couldn't really believe we would have to face them alone. He couldn't imagine that the sepoys wouldn't be loyal to us when it came to it." He stopped again. His hand curled and uncurled on the edge of the sheet. "Of course he was wrong."

"I know," she said softly. "Did you have food and ammunition?"

He looked at her steadily.

"Food was modest; ammunition was good. But there was no shelter. After only a few days the walls were so riddled with shot we dug trenches and pulled carts and trunks and furniture over us to protect ourselves as much as we could. The heat was unbearable for many."

She tried to imagine India in July. It was hotter than anything she had ever known.

"I don't know how many died of it," he said, still watching her closely. He needed to speak of the loss of his friends, the human beings he had seen in the utmost extremity of suffering, and yet a part of him was still aware of what such knowledge might do to her. And he needed to know they were not empty descriptions she could not follow. He needed her companionship in his grief.

"I imagine it was worse than the cold," she said thoughtfully. "I've seen men freeze, and animals too."

"The smell," he answered. "It was the smell... and the flies I hated most. I still can't bear the sound of flies. It makes me sick and I can't get my breath. I feel as if I am suffocating and my heart is going to burst."

"You weren't relieved?" She remembered reading it in the Illustrated London News. The account had been terrible, even after censorship for the general public.

"No." The word fell like a stone. "Every day we kept expecting help would come. We didn't know the whole country was under the sword. We fell one by one, taking as many of the enemy with us as we could. I've never seen greater courage. Every able-bodied person did what they could, men and women alike. Every man stood his watch. The women nursed the sick, carried food and water, tried to protect the children."

His hand rubbed the edge of the sheet, gripping it so hard the fabric must have hurt his skin. The movement was some kind of release of tension, even though his muscles were locked tight. She had seen it before in men recalling events of nightmare proportions. The room was silent in the spring evening.

"We were good shots," he resumed. "We kept them at bay. They didn't charge us and overrun. But there were so many of them, and their guns could reach us easily. They fired at everything that moved. Every day we thought help would come. It was so hot. No escape from it. You could smell the heat, feel it everywhere. The sweat dried the instant it broke. Skin hurt to touch. It cracked and blistered." He shrugged very slightly. "I don't know why I mentioned that. It hardly mattered. We died of heat stroke and dysentery... those who didn't die of their wounds. What did it matter if groins or armpits were on fire?"

"The one thing too much to bear," she answered. "For me it was the rats... rats everywhere, dropping off the walls."

He smiled, a sudden wide grin, beautiful in spite of his disfigured face. It was not any kind of amusement, simply the dazzling, wonderful relief of being not alone.

"But you survived," she said. She guessed that was part of the private torture inside him. She had known it before in men who had seen companions fall all around them, for no reason other than chance as to where they were standing. A yard this way or that and it would have been someone else. One moment they were alive, full of intelligence and feeling, the next just mangled blood and bone, torn flesh and pain... or nothing at all, the fire and the soul gone. One could not get rid of the guilt of being the one who survived. Part of you wanted to be with them.

His smile vanished, but he did not avoid her eyes.

"On June twenty-fourth Mrs. Greenway came to the in-trenchment with a aote from Nena Sahib. I can still see her face. She was old, very old indeed. She seemed like an embodiment of Time to me... or of Death. She had been a prisoner of the rebels and they sent her with terms of surrender." His voice was harsh, filled with emotion so great it almost choked him. "Nena Sahib promised that if we gave up all the money, stores and arms in the intrenchment he would not only allow all the survivors of the garrison to retreat unmolested but he would provide means of conveyance for the women and children as well."

She looked steadily at his eyes. The horror was still so deep inside him it seemed to fill his being. It was like a storm about to break.

"The treaty was agreed upon." His voice became strained almost to a whisper. "On June twenty-seventh we surrendered according to the terms and filed out of the garrison. The women and children were led aboard boats on the river... there were small thatched coverings on them... protection from the sun. The man in charge was called Tanteea Topee. He was sitting on a platform watching it all. A bugle sounded at his command, and they ran out the guns which had been concealed up to that point. They fired on the boats. The thatch caught alight. Women and children were burned alive. Some jumped into the stream, but the sepoys rode their horses into the water and clubbed and sabered them to pieces. Some managed to struggle to the farther shore."

Hester closed her eyes and put her hands up to cover her face. She had not meant to, but she did it without thinking.

"Then Nena Sahib ordered all the remaining men shot," Gabriel went on as if he could not now stop himself. "The women and children who had made it as far as the shore he had taken to his residence. They were hacked to pieces too, and their bodies thrown down the well."

She looked up at him again. She must not run away from this. It was all past. They could hurt no more. But Gabriel needed not to be alone in his horror. He was the only one still alive she could help.

He went on talking.

"When General Havelock's men found it eventually, the floor of the room was two inches deep in human blood. They found the hacked-up limbs and bodies in the well. They pulled up the body of one of General Wheeler's daughters. They sent a lock of her hair home as a memento, to her family in England." His voice was low in the quiet room smelling of clean linen and candle wax. "The rest of the scalp they divided up among themselves and then each man counted the individual hairs in his portion and swore an oath by heaven, and by the God who created him, that he would kill one mutineer for every hair he had. I know, because one of those men was a friend of mine. He wept even as he told me of it. He used to scream in his sleep when he remembered that house and what they found in it."

"How did you escape?" she asked him.

"I was hit on the head and nearly drowned," he replied. "But I was washed up by the river further downstream. I lay senseless for so long I suppose they thought I was dead and not worth bothering with. When I came to myself they had taken the plunder and the prisoners who were still alive and gone. Then followed the worst two weeks of my life... I don't know how I lived, but I made my way towards Futtehpore and met up with General Havelock's men. I was nearly dead and of no use for the fight, but they took care of me. I recovered." He smiled as if it still surprised him. "I wasn't even badly hurt, just burned and half starved and on the point of exhaustion." He glanced at his empty sleeve. "I didn't lose that until a few months ago. It was a stupid street brawl I tried to stop. But you don't need to hear about that."

What he meant was that he did not want to relive it.

"No, of course not," she agreed, standing up slowly, finding her legs shaking and her balance not very good. She put out a hand to steady herself.

"Thank you for listening to me," he said gravely. "I... I hope I haven't disturbed you too much... but there is no one else. They don't wish to know. They think it would be much better for me if I were to forget... but how can I? It would be such a betrayal... even if it were possible!" He wanted reassurance he was right. "What kind of man would I be if I could just go on as if they had never lived... and died like that?"

"One never forgets," she agreed, thinking of some of her own memories, men, and women too, who had been fragile and brave and who had died terribly. "But you can't expect other people to share what they don't understand." She straightened the bedclothes unnecessarily. "It is a part of your life, and it always will be... but it isn't all of it."

He looked at her ruefully, acknowledgment in his eyes, but he did not answer.

She glanced at his bedside table to make sure he had water and a clean glass.

"Is there anything else you would like?"

"No," he said flatly. "No, thank you. Are-are you going to sit with Perdita?"

She knew what he really meant. She was aware of his deep sense of inadequacy to be the husband, companion and protector that he had promised his wife he would be. Instead he was in need of her strength and help, not only physically but emotionally.

"Yes," she said with a smile of assurance. "As soon as I can see you are settled I shall go and find her."

He relaxed. At least for tonight he need not worry. "Thank you. Good night, Hester." Without being aware of it he had used her Christian name.

"Good night, Gabriel," she answered from the doorway, then went out and closed the door quietly.

It was after eleven o'clock, but since she had promised, she made her way downstairs to see if Perdita was still up. Most probably she was not, but she must look.

However, as soon as she opened the withdrawing room door Perdita sat up from the sofa where she had been curled half asleep. Her hair was tousled and she blinked even in the dim light of the one wall lamp still lit.

"How is he?" she asked anxiously. "Is he all right?"

Hester closed the door and walked over to the chair near Perdita and sat down. She looked at the younger woman's frightened eyes and her soft cheek, marked now where she had Iain against the crease in the cushions. She was about twenty-two, but in some ways no more than a child. She had been married at eighteen after a year's betrothal to a man who was in every way her ideal. She had seen him through the eyes of a girl who expected everything of marriage. It was not only what was required of her, it was her own dream, and Gabriel Sheldon was the perfect husband: handsome, brave, charming, well-bred and with a promising career. And for all that it had been a socially suitable marriage, they had also been in love.

Now her whole world was in ruins, for no reason she could comprehend, and she was overwhelmed by it.

"He is settled for the night," Hester answered. "I think he will sleep well." She had no idea whether he would or not, but there was no purpose in saying that to Perdita.

Perdita frowned. "Are you sure? You were in there a long time..."

"Oh... I suppose I was. We were just talking. There was nothing wrong, I promise you."

Perdita looked unhappy, twisting her hands together in her lap.

"I never know what to say to him," she murmured. "I can't keep asking how he is feeling. He only says he's all right. And I know he isn't, but there's nothing I can do." She glanced up suddenly. She had very blue eyes, but in this somber light they seemed almost black. "What do you find to say, Miss Latterly?"

Hester hesitated. She should not answer with the truth. He had not said so, but what Gabriel had told her was implicitly a confidence. It was something neither of them could share with anyone else. As close as she had been to William Monk at times;-all the causes they had fought for together, the tragedies they had seen-she would not share her experiences of the battlefield or the siege or the hospital at Scutari with him. But Gabriel understood.

She must find an answer which did not make Perdita feel even more helpless and excluded.

"It is easier for me," she began, watching Perdita's face. "We are not emotionally concerned with each other. There cannot be the same... the same sort of hurt. We were discussing places we had been to, what it was like, the things that are different, and those that are the same."

"Oh..."

Had Perdita disbelieved her? It was impossible to tell from her downcast expression and the hesitation in her voice. Her loneliness was so sharp it was almost like a cry.

"I told him a few of my experiences in the Crimea," Hester went on, impelled to add to what she had said.

"The Crimea?" Perdita did not immediately understand. Then realization flooded her face. "You were in the Crimea?"

Hester perceived instantly that she had made a mistake. Perdita had heard and read enough to know that that conflict, with its horror and its losses, had had so much in common with the Mutiny in India that Hester and Gabriel must share feelings and memories she could never know. It was clear in her eyes that she was uncertain how she felt about it. Part of her was relieved, grateful that there was someone he could turn to; another part, easily as great, felt frightened and excluded because it was not her.

"Yes." It would be absurd to deny it. "That is where I learned my nursing abilities. I imagine that is why your brother-in-law chose me to come here."

"So you could talk to Gabriel?"

"Rather more so I would have some knowledge of what his needs would be," Hester answered.

Perdita stared at the embers of the fire. "He doesn't think I can learn to do that. He doesn't think I will be any use or comfort at all."

What was there to say that was even remotely honest and yet not so hurtful it was destructive?

"Sometimes there isn't anything you can do," Hester began, thinking what more to say, feeling for words. "At times he may wish to speak of the Mutiny and of what happened at Cawn-pore, other times he will want to forget it. No one can know when each will be."

"You mean it is easier for you?" Perdita said.

"In some ways, yes, of course it is. Not just because I have seen a battlefield..."

"Can you tell me what it is like?" Perdita asked, eagerness and dread mixed in her voice. "So I can understand Gabriel? He won't tell me anything about it. I was at home when he was in India, and my father wouldn't even allow me to read about it in the newspapers. He said it was not suitable... for me or for my mother." She bit her lip. "He said we didn't have to know things like that, and anyway it was only a journalist's idea of the truth and might be inaccurate and overdramatic.

Now it's too late because the newspapers are all thrown away ages ago."

"You can always go to the library and find the back copies, if you want to," Hester pointed out. "But I am not sure it that would be a good thing. Do you wish to know about it... as much as can be understood by reading?"

The fire crackled and threw up a shower of sparks.

Perdita sat very still. "I don't know. Sometimes I think so, then there are times when I wish it never had to be thought of again and I'm glad I know nothing." She took a long breath and shook her head a little. "I just wish it would go away and everything could be as it used to... before the Mutiny. None of that mattered then." She sniffed. "I could have gone out to Delhi, or Bombay, or wherever was the nearest place to where Gabriel was. I could have been with him, and none of these things would have happened!"

"He wouldn't have seen things like the massacre at Cawn-pore," Hester agreed. "But he would still have lost his friends, and he might still have received his own injuries. That can happen anywhere."

"Not in England!" Perdita said, looking up quickly.

"Yes, it could. People can be dragged by horses, or burned by fires, or any number of other things. There isn't anywhere where life is completely safe. And even if there were, it doesn't matter now. The only way is forward through reality, through what we have."

"You make it sound so easy!" There was resentment in Perdita's voice, and fear, and self-pity.

"No, it isn't," Hester contradicted her. "It's very difficult indeed. It's just that there isn't any alternative worth having. And perhaps Gabriel doesn't want you to know about the Mutiny."

"You mean he thinks I'm not strong enough to bear it!" Perdita challenged. "But you are! He can talk to you about it for hours."

Hester took a deep breath. "I am here temporarily. In a while I shall leave again. It doesn't matter to him what I know or what I think. I shall be gone after a while. And he doesn't care so much about my feelings... beyond what courtesy dictates. I am a stranger, not part of his life."

Perdita's face softened a little, a flare of hope in her eyes.

"But if he doesn't want me to know, if I can't share it with him, how can I ever be of any use?" The sharp edge in her voice was fading but still discernible.

Hester thought very carefully. "Wait a little while," she suggested. "Feelings don't always remain the same. He has only been home a few days. You cannot make tomorrow's decision until tomorrow comes. I know that is hard. One wants to see the way ahead... but it is not possible."

Perdita sat silently for several minutes and Hester waited without interrupting.

Eventually, Perdita stood up and straightened her dress. She seemed unaware that her hair was coming out of its pins, long, fair brown hair with a wave in it.

"I suppose I had better go to bed. I'm terribly tired, but I can't seem to sleep these nights."

"Would you like me to make you a draft?" Hester offered, rising to her feet as well. "Or a lavender pillow? Do you have one? They can help."

"I expect so. I think there's one in my handkerchief drawer or in the linen." She went to the door without looking at Hester. "I can ask Martha. Good night, Miss Latterly."

"Good night, Mrs. Sheldon."

Perdita went out and Hester heard her walk across the hall and then silence. She went out herself a few moments afterwards, and upstairs to her room. She washed quickly in cold water and went to bed. She was too tired to lie awake.

In the morning she accomplished her usual duties for Gabriel, changing the linen and seeing that his bandages were fresh and the wound clean. The doctor had called the day before and there was no need to trouble him today.

She was in the stillroom sorting through the various herbs and oils kept in stock in the house when Perdita's lady's maid came in. Martha Jackson was a thin, dark woman who had probably been handsome enough in her youth, but now, in her middle forties, she was a little gaunt. The lines of hardship were etched deeply into her face but there was no bitterness in them, and no self-pity. Hester had liked her from the moment they met. She had gathered from the odd remark let slip that Martha had originally been Perdita's governess but that circumstances had dictated that she remain in a secure position, and become her maid, rather than leave and seek another post as governess somewhere else, which could only be temporary again, as children's schoolroom years always pass. Once she had been a senior, almost independent employee. Now she was a servant, albeit a necessary and trusted one.

"Good morning, Miss Latterly," she said with forced cheerfulness. "How are you today? I hope you are settling in well. If there is anything I can do, please let me know."

Hester smiled at her. "Good morning, Miss Jackson. Yes, I am very comfortable, thank you."

Martha busied herself with making a paste for reviving the luster of tortoiseshell which had lost its shine and depth. She was carefully putting drops of olive oil into a teaspoon of jeweler's rouge.

"Are you needing anything in particular, Miss Latterly?" she asked after a moment or two. "Perhaps there is something missing that you could use?" She started to apply the paste to the comb, rubbing the soft cloth around in small circular movements.

"More lavender," Hester answered. "I think Mrs. Sheldon is not finding it easy to sleep at the moment."

Martha was rubbing with the cloth automatically. She turned to face Hester.

"She's so frightened," she said quietly. "Is there anything you can say to comfort her? I've racked my brains, but I know so little about his condition; if I tell her something that isn't true, she'll never trust me again. She has no one else to turn to. Mr. Sheldon is no use-" She stopped abruptly. She had betrayed a family confidence, even if it was one Hester could have worked out for herself, and probably had. It was not what others knew that mattered, it was the breach of trust.

Hester saw the compassion in Martha's face. It was more than duty or the pity anyone might have felt; it was the kind of love which cannot escape once obligation has been fulfilled, or walk away when conscience is satisfied. Martha had known and cared for Perdita since Perdita was a child. Perhaps she was the only one who had, closely, daily, seeing the weaknesses as well as the strengths, the temptations and disappointments, the failures; the only one who knew what effort or what price lay behind the outward joys.

"I don't know," Hester confessed. "But I am trying to think."

"She loved him so much," Martha went on. "You should have seen him before he went away. He was so full of life, so happy. He believed in everything... al least he seemed as if he did." She pushed a strand of hair off her brow. "You can't ever get back that innocence, can you." It was a statement not a question, and it appeared as if she was thinking of other things as well, tragedies that had nothing to do with this.

Hester knew exactly what she meant. She had seen the raw soldiers arrive from the troopships, and then seen their faces again after one of the battles where men were slaughtered by the hundreds, cut down uselessly, human beings sheared off like corn before the harvest. You could not ever get that hope, that unknowing, back.

"No," she agreed. "She asked me last night if she should read about the Mutiny, about Cawnpore and Lucknow. I didn't know what to say."

Martha stared at her, her eyes dark, her cheeks hollow, as if she had borne all Perdita's suffering; but there was still a kind of softness in her in spite of the angles and the sharp cheekbones.

"She mustn't!" she said urgently. "She couldn't bear it. You don't understand, Miss Latterly, she's never experienced anything... violent... in her life." She lifted her hands helplessly, waving the cloth. "She's never seen anyone... dead. In families like the Lofftens they don't ever mention death. People don't die, they 'pass over,' or sometimes they 'take the great journey.' But it is always peaceful, as if they have fallen asleep. She will have to learn this... very slowly."

Hester reached for the jar of dried lavender flowers. "I don't think there is time to be very slow," she replied, realizing how little she knew of Perdita Sheldon or of the tenor of her marriage, the strength of her love for her husband. Hester could hardly ask Martha if Perdita was really only in love with the idea of love, of a handsome husband and a dream of happiness which simply moved, untrammeled by pain or reality, into an endless future. Asking Martha would be almost like making such an inquiry of her own mother.

And yet if she did not she might be losing the only chance anyone had to help Perdita-and Gabriel. He was maimed; he was disfigured. He had seen horror he would never forget and had lost too many of the flower of his friends not to be reminded-with every hot day, every military tune, every buzzing of flies-of what he had seen.

"Perhaps she should start with a history of India?" Hester suggested. "Begin forty or fifty years ago. Then the Mutiny would make more sense. By the time she reached it, she would understand at least a little of why it happened." She smiled, remembering schoolbook Latin. "Peccavi," she said wryly. "That is what Clive said when he had conquered the province of Sind. He sent it in the dispatch home."

Martha blinked.

"Peccavi," Hester repeated. "It is Latin... It means 'I have sinned.' "

"Oh. I see." Martha smiled back, some of the tension easing out of her face. "Of course. It is so long since I taught... and then it was mostly French, and a little Italian for music. I'm sorry." She blushed, and began to buff the tortoiseshell gently. "Things have changed... but that has nothing to do with Miss Perdita now. Do you think Indian history would help? I suppose... she does have to know? You don't think he-Lieutenant Sheldon-would be better if he could forget it, bit by bit? Would it be easier if she didn't know?"

"If you were she, what would you want?" Hester asked, searching Martha's face.

Suddenly Martha's eyes filled with tears and she turned away, wiping her hand quickly across her cheek. "I should want to know!" she said fiercely. "No matter what the truth was... I should want to know!" Her voice was tight and brittle with the power of her emotions, and for a moment some pain within her was naked.

Hester could not pretend not to have noticed, but she could at least refrain from making any remark.

"Then we had better find her some appropriate books," she said, pulling down the next jar, which held comfrey leaves. It was less than half full. "And I think we should replenish our stock of herbs and oils before it gets too low."

Martha regained control of herself and continued polishing. "Yes, certainly, Miss Latterly," she agreed. "I think that would be excellent. Thank you for your counsel." She shot her a swift look of gratitude, and for a moment there was great understanding between them.

In the afternoon Hester was upstairs with Gabriel, reading to him from a book of poetry, a world utterly removed from the physical immediacies or the emotional pains of reality. It was Keats's epic "Endymion," and its lovely cadences soothed without turmoil.

There was a brisk knock on the door, and almost before Gabriel had spoken, it opened and Athol Sheldon came in. He was Gabriel's height, but broader in shoulder and chest, and he walked on the balls of his feet, as if he were about to break into a run. He had a long, straight nose and an extremely direct stare.

"Good afternoon, good afternoon," he said cheerfully, looking first at Gabriel, then at Hester. "Getting on well?

Good." He always enquired after people's well-being, but never waited for an answer, assuming it would be positive. He had extremely robust health himself, and regarded it as an attainable ideal for everyone, if not immediately, then certainly in time, with the right attitude. As a matter of principle, he never complained about anything.

"Hello, Athol," Gabriel replied guardedly. In his present state he found such vigor exhausting. "How are you?" He asked from habit.

"Very well, very well," Athol replied, sitting on the edge of the bed. "Saw Perdita before I came up." His face shadowed. "Not in good spirits, poor girl. Bit worried, if you ask me. Have to see what we can do about it."

Gabriel sighed soundlessly. "She seemed all right when she came in just before luncheon. She said she would take a walk this afternoon... later."

"Good," Athol agreed. "She ought to get out more. Brisk walk is the best thing in the world. Sure you agree, Miss Latterly. Not enough fresh air. Read somewhere that your Miss Nightingale said that." He looked pleased with himself.

"Yes," Hester agreed reluctantly. Athol's insensitivity annoyed her. He reminded her of many soldiers she had known, always convinced they were right, wearing an air of impenetrable confidence like armor against any kind of doubt, seldom listening to anyone else. Only heaven could count the number of lives they had cost.

She knew she was probably being unfair to Athol Sheldon. He was not a soldier. Being the eldest brother, he had inherited the family estate in Buckinghamshire and most of the time managed it, sufficiently well at least to allow him to offer financial assistance to his injured brother.

"There you are." Athol rubbed his hands together. "Duties of a wife are first, of course; but she should find an occupation of some sort to fill her hours. Plenty of good works to be done. Vicar's wife would know all about it. Need younger women on some of their charities. Fresh ideas... energy." He looked a little uncomfortable.

"I expect she will," Gabriel agreed, easing himself up a little higher on his pillows.

"Have another one," Athol offered immediately, leaning forward.

"It's all right!" Gabriel refused, using his one hand. "I can manage."

" 'Course you can. Apologies." Athol retreated. "You'll get used to doing all manner of things. A few weeks will make all the difference. A year from now you'll have put it all behind you."

He did not seem to notice Gabriel's face tighten.

"Time will heal the memories," Athol went on cheerfully. "Perdita will help you to forget. Lovely girl. Look towards the future. Now, is there anything I can do for you? Anything you need?"

Gabriel smiled. "No, thank you. You have done extremely well for me."

"Pleasure, my dear fellow." Athol smiled back, looking a little less uncomfortable. "Don't worry, everything will sort itself out. Only got to do our part and we'll be able to put all this behind us."

Hester cringed. Athol had not the faintest idea what he was talking about. For him the Indian Mutiny and its horror were only mistakes on the pages of history, momentary darknesses in the grand procession of empire.

Athol stood up. "Won't interrupt you." He put his hands under the lapels of his jacket and rearranged it on his shoulders. "Must see if I can call on the vicar and have a word with him about Perdita. I am sure something can be arranged. Do her the world of good. Always does. Busy, that's the thing."

Gabriel looked quickly at Hester, his eyes searching.

Hester stood up. "I'll see you to the door, Mr. Sheldon."

"No need, my dear Miss Latterly," he said graciously. "Don't want to interrupt you. What are you reading? Shelley? Bit miserable, isn't it? I'll bring you something with a bit more fire to it, something more uplifting."

Hester controlled herself with an effort. After all, they did not have to read it. "Thank you. That is very kind." But she still walked to the door with him and accompanied him onto the landing and slowly down the stairs.

"Mr. Sheldon..."

He stopped, hesitant for an instant, as if he too had considered speaking to her. "Yes, Miss Latterly?"

"Please reconsider asking Mrs. Sheldon to participate too fully in other activities just at the moment," she said gravely. "I-I don't think it will help."

"Always good to be busy, Miss Latterly," he said quickly, almost as if he had decided how to answer before she spoke. "Needs to get out. Mustn't brood, you know." His voice lifted, not as if his last comment were a question but rather as if he sought to encourage her somehow. "Can think about things too much. Get inward. Not healthy."

"But-"

He frowned. "Know you mean the best for them," he went on, interrupting. "Gabriel's your patient, and all that. Er... speaking of which... most natural thing in the world, only thing for a woman, really... faith, modesty... good works..." He colored faintly and ceased meeting her eyes. "I... ah... well... do you think she will have children, Miss Latterly? Perdita... of course..."

"I know of no reason why not, Mr. Sheldon," she replied. "Gabriel's injuries are not of that nature, and I fully expect his general health to return in time. However..."

"Good... good. Hope you don't mind my asking? Indelicate, I know..."

"I don't mind at all," she assured him.

He started to move down the stairs again, relieved.

She kept pace with him, then went a step ahead and stopped.

He stopped also, more or less obliged to, if he were not to push past her.

"Mr. Sheldon, I think it is important that Mrs. Sheldon learn something of what actually happened in the Mutiny, in time about the massacre at Cawnpore."

"Good God!" He blushed deeply. "I mean... good heavens!" he corrected himself. "I simply cannot agree. You are quite mistaken, my dear Miss Latterly. I know something of it myself. Read the newspapers at the time, having a brother out there, and all that. Quite terrible. Not a suitable thing for a woman to know at all. You can't have any idea, or you would not have said such a thing. Absolutely out of the question." He waved his hand to dismiss it.

"I know it was terrible." She refused to retreat, obliging him to remain where he was, even though he loomed over her. "I also read the newspapers at the time, but rather more important than that, and possibly truer, Gabriel himself has told me some of his experiences-"

He shook his head sharply. "You should not have encouraged him, Miss Latterly. Never good to dwell on tragedies, unpleasant things in general. Too easy to become morbid... downcast, you know. And all that is quite unsuitable for Perdita. Distress her needlessly."

"I don't think it is needless, Mr. Sheldon," she answered. "It is the most emotionally profound thing that has happened in his life-"

"Oh, really..."

"And he cannot forget it," she went on, disregarding his interruption. "One does not forget friends simply because they are dead, and all of it is too big and too recent not to intrude into his thoughts every day. If she is to be any sort of wife and companion, as she has said she wishes, she must share at least some part of his experience."

"You are asking far too much, Miss Latterly," he corrected, shaking his head again. "And if I may say so, quite inappropriately. A young woman, a lady, of Perdita's background, a gentlewoman, should not know of such barbarities as occurred in India. Part of her charm, her great value in a man's life, is precisely that she keeps an island safe for him, unsoiled by the tragedies of the world. That is a very beautiful thing, Miss Latterly. Do not try to damage that or rob them both of it." He smiled as he finished speaking, a calm, assured expression returning to his face, except for the faintest shadow in his eyes. She knew he was speaking to convince himself as well as her. He needed that island to exist, to visit it in mind if nothing more. It was his own dreams he was protecting as much as Gabriel's.

And perhaps it was his way of protecting himself from Gabriel's pain. There was a fear in him of the darkness he only guessed at in acts like those in the Mutiny. Like many people, he preferred to think they could not really have happened, not as had been reported.

Was there any purpose in trying to force him to see the reality?

"Mr. Sheldon, when we share our terror and pain with someone else, we create a bond with that person which is seldom broken. Should we not give Mrs. Sheldon the chance to be the one to share Gabriel's experiences?"

He frowned at her.

"I mean," she went on hastily, "allow her to decide whether she will or not, rather than deciding it for her?"

"Not very logical, my dear Miss Latterly," he said with a quick smile. "Since she can have no idea what she would be offering to share, she cannot make such a decision. No, I am quite certain we should not burden her." His voice gathered conviction. "It is our duty to protect-my duty, in which you will be of great assistance."

"Mr. Sheldon..." she persisted.

But he raised his hand, smiling widely. "We must have fortitude and strength, Miss Latterly. We shall overcome. I trust you are a woman of Christian faith? Yes, of course you are. You could not do the great good works which I already know of you, were you not. Onward!" He thrust his hand out, holding it high. "We must go forward, and we shall overcome." And he brushed past her and went on down the stairs with a spring in his step.

Hester swore under her breath, words she would have been ashamed to use aloud, and returned the way she had come.

In the evening Hester sat restlessly fiddling with mending which did not really need to be done. Martha attended to such things and left little from one week to the next. But she could not keep her mind on mending, and sitting idle was even worse.

There was a knock on the door.

"Come in," she said with relief.

Martha entered and closed the door behind her. She looked tired and dispirited.

"Have you time to sit down?" Hester invited. She set her sewing aside. "Would you like a cup of tea?"

Martha smiled. "I'll get it. I'm sure you would like one too, wouldn't you?"

"Thank you," Hester accepted. "Yes, I really would."

Martha held out a letter. "This came for you in the last post."

"Oh!" Hester took it with pleasure. It was written in Lady Callandra Daviot's hand and postmarked from Fort William, in the north of Scotland. "Oh, good!"

"A friend?" Martha said with a smile. "I'll fetch the tea. Would you like some shortbread as well?"

"Yes, please," Hester accepted, and the moment after Martha had gone, she tore open the letter and read:

My dear Hester,

What a marvelous country! I had never imagined I would enjoy myself so much. I have the undeniable urge to try painting again. It should all be done on wet paper, I think, to catch the softness of the colors and the way the light strikes the water. Yesterday I came back from the Isle of Skye. The Cuillin Mountains are so beautiful they make me ache inside because the moment I look away I know I shall need to see them again. And I cannot spend the rest of my life standing on the spot staring at shifting sunlight and mist and the shadows across the sea.

Today I am resting and doing very little, except writing to friends, of whom you and William are the only ones who might begin to understand how I feel, and therefore the only ones in which I shall have pleasure, rather than the mere knowledge of duty performed. What slaves we are to conscience! I wonder how much the postman carries that is no more than obligation satisfied?

How are you? Have you any cases which you care about intensely? Or are you nursing bored old ladies with the vapors, and nothing to do with their time and money but make somebody else run around after them, and irascible colonels with gout whose only cure would be to abstain from the Port and Stilton, and who will never do that?

Have you seen William lately? I missed his last case of real interest. Of course, he told me about it afterwards, but that is hardly the same thing. He is doing so well recently that he does not need my occasional financial intervention- which of course pleases me immensely. I wish Mm to succeed. Of course I do. My support was only intended to be temporary, or I know he would not have accepted it. Men are very odd when it comes to money-unless, of course, they marry it. In which case they consider it theirs by right, as indeed it is by law.

However, I do miss the excitement of being with you, the urgency of learning the truth about some violence in secret, even though it may in the end prove to be tragic. I am not used to drifting on the surface of life, and I find the calm of it sometimes drives me into a terrible state of loneliness, as if the reality were passing me by. Am I sitting behind a window observing the world, separated by impenetrable glass?

Hester read more description of the majestic and lyrical beauty of the Highlands, but her mind was more fully tuned to the emotions which underlay it, and her own memories of the warmth of Callandra's friendship-and the honesty. In a sense, Callandra had replaced the family she was no longer close to, and she looked forward to her return.

Martha came back with a tray of tea and a rather large plate of fresh shortbread from the kitchen. She set it down and poured for both of them.

Hester put the letter aside.

Martha held her cup, waiting till it should cool sufficiently to sip. She was frowning and obviously troubled.

Hester guessed. "Did Mr. Sheldon say anything to Mrs. Sheldon about reading Indian history?" she asked. "I tried to argue him out of it, but I am almost sure I failed."

"I am afraid you did," Martha agreed, looking at her over the top of her cup. "He believes that the least that is said the soonest it will be mended-which is absolute nonsense!" Her voice was urgent with an anger she knew she should not express. "She is so lonely because she has no idea even what he is closing her out from. It isn't just the physical pain... or the memories." She stared ahead of her, her eyes on something far beyond this quiet, domestic room and the household around them, settled for the night, no sound but the hissing of the gas and the occasional creak of a floorboard.

Hester did not interrupt her.

"It is not being whole," Martha went on. "It is being used to beauty and then suddenly having to accept ugliness, deformity..." She obviously found even the word painful to say.

"Disfigurement," Hester contradicted her. "It isn't really the same."

Martha looked at her quickly. "No-no, of course not. I'm sorry. I was half thinking of something else. I..." She regarded Hester with a curious ahnost shyness, and yet her eyes were searching.

"You have experienced it before?" Hester asked very quietly, then took the first hot sip of her tea, not to press too hard.

Martha turned away again, pushing the plate of shortbread across closer to Hester. "My brother Samuel married a very pretty woman... twenty-five years ago now, it must be-or nearly. Dolly, her name was. She had the most perfect skin. Not a blemish anywhere. And lovely eyes... and fine features." She stopped, anger, pity and confusion in her face. The memory hurt her and there was something in it still fiercely unresolved.

Hester waited.

"They were happy, I think," Martha went on. "Sam adored her. They had a baby, a little girl. Phemie, they called her. That was Dolly's idea. Sam wanted to call her by a biblical name, something old-fashioned." She sipped her tea. "I can remember the day he came to tell me." She stopped and took a moment or two to master her emotions. She breathed deeply, her thin chest rising and falling with the effort. "She wasn't right." Her voice was choked. "Little Phemie was deformed. Her face. Her mouth. Her lips were all twisted. Dolly couldn't suckle her herself. She was too upset. She got a wet nurse in, but even she had terrible difficulty getting the baby to feed. She was a poor little thing for long enough, but in the end she did survive."

"I'm sorry," Hester said quietly. She had almost no knowledge of caring for babies. All her experience had been with the results of violence and disease, and always with adults. There was something particularly wrenching to the heart about a tiny creature, new in the world, struggling to live.

Martha drank some of her tea. "It wasn't until Leda was born about two years later that they realized Phemie was deaf too."

Hester said nothing. She knew from Martha's face that she was trying to collect her self-control sufficiently to say something else which still tore at her, over twenty years afterwards, intruding into Perdita Sheldon's grief and confusion and, for a moment at least, pushing it aside.

"Leda was deformed as well," Martha said in a whisper. "It was her mouth and an eye. She could see, but she couldn't hear either, except a tiny bit." She looked at Hester, waiting for her to say something.

"I'm so sorry." Hester could only try to imagine what the mother must have felt, the overwhelming tide of pity, anger, confusion, guilt, and also consuming fear for the future of the children she had borne into a world which would treat them with terrible cruelty, sometimes without even realizing it. What would become of them when she was not there to protect and defend and love them?

"What happened?" she asked.

"Sam loved them," Martha answered, biting her lip and staring straight ahead. "He looked after them, even when Dolly was too distraught to manage." She stopped again, unable for a moment to continue.

Hester sat motionless, ignoring the tea and the shortbread; in fact, she had forgotten them.

"Then Sam died," Martha said abruptly. "It was something with his stomach. It was very quick. Dolly couldn't manage without him. She was completely distracted with grief. Phemie and Leda were put into an institution and Dolly went away. She didn't tell us where. I expect she meant to, but something inside her just... collapsed." She looked at Hester, her eyes filled with tears. "I would have taken the girls, if I could have. But I was in service. There was no place for two little children. Phemie was barely three, and Leda only a year... and-and they weren't pretty children. They were... deformed. And they couldn't hear, so they would never be any use to anyone..."

Hester reached out and took Martha in her arms, holding her thin body closely and feeling the dry sobs that racked through her.

"Of course, there was nothing you could do," Hester said gently. "You had to work to eat. So do all of us. Sometimes it is all you can do to support yourself, and if you go under, what use is that to anyone?"

"I wish I knew where they were!" Martha said desperately. "I look at Lieutenant Sheldon with his face all twisted and burned like that until half of him hardly looks human, and I see the look in Perdita's eyes, and she was so in love with him... and now she can hardly bring herself to look at him straight, let alone touch him... and I wonder what happened to those poor little souls. I should have found some way to help! Who's going to love them, if not me?"

"I don't know," Hester said honestly. False words of comfort now would only leave Martha thinking she did not understand or believe the enormity of her anguish. Hester held her even closer. "We can't change what has already happened, but we can try to do something about Gabriel and Perdita. She's got to learn to understand, to forget his disfigured face and see the man inside... that beauty matters so much more. That is what will love her in return. To the devil with Athol Sheldon and his ideas."

Martha gave a jerky little laugh, half choking. "He means well," she said, straightening herself up and pushing back some of her hair which had fallen askew from its pins. "He just doesn't realize..."

Hester poured fresh tea, which was still hot and steaming fragrantly. She passed one of the cups over to Martha.

Martha smiled and fished in her pocket for a handkerchief to blow her nose.

Hester sipped her own tea and took a piece of shortbread.

"Thank you for bringing my letter up," she said conversationally. "It was written from Scotland. Have you ever been there?"

Martha dabbed her eyes and settled to listen with interest to Callandra Daviot's account of her journeys.