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“Oh no,” Hester replied demurely. “He might have thought I had someone in particular in mind.”
Beatrice smiled very slightly. She walked back towards the bed and lay on it, weary not in body but in mind, and Hester gently pulled the covers over her, trying to hide her own impatience. She was convinced Beatrice knew something, and every day that passed in silence was adding to the danger that it might never be discovered but that the whole household would close in on itself in corroding suspicion and concealed accusations. And would her silence be enough to protect her indefinitely from the murderer?
“Are you comfortable?” she asked gently.
“Yes thank you,” Beatrice said absently. “Hester?”
“Yes?”
“Were you frightened in the Crimea? It must have been dangerous at times. Did you not fear for yourself—and for those of whom you had grown fond?”
“Yes of course.” Hester’s mind flew back to the times when she had lain in her cot with horror creeping over her skin and the sick knowledge of what pain awaited the men she had seen so shortly before, the numbing cold in the heights above Sebastopol, the mutilation of wounds, the carnage of battle, bodies broken and so mangled as to be almost unrecognizable as human, only as bleeding flesh, once alive and capable of unimaginable pain. It was seldom herself for whom she had been frightened; only sometimes, when she was so tired she felt ill, did the sudden specter of typhoid or cholera so terrify her as to cause her stomach to lurch and the sweat to break out and stand cold on her body.
Beatrice was looking at her, for once her eyes sharp with real interest—there was nothing polite or feigned in it.
Hester smiled. “Yes I was afraid sometimes, but not often. Mostly I was too busy. When you can do something about even the smallest part of it, the overwhelming sick horror goes. You stop seeing the whole thing and see only the tiny part you are dealing with, and the fact that you can do something calms you. Even if all you accomplish is easing one person’s distress or helping someone to endure with hope instead of despair. Sometimes it is just tidying up that helps, getting a kind of order out of the chaos.”
Only when she had finished and saw the understanding in Beatrice’s face did she realize the additional meanings of what she had said. If anyone had asked her earlier if she would have changed her life for Beatrice’s, married and secure in status and well-being with family and friends, she would have accepted it as a woman’s most ideal role, as if it were a stupid thing even to doubt.
Perhaps Beatrice would just as quickly have refused. Now they had both changed their views with a surprise which was still growing inside them. Beatrice was safe from material misfortune, but she was also withering inside with boredom and lack of accomplishment. Pain appalled her because she had no part in addressing it. She endured passively, without knowledge or weapon with which to fight it, either in herself or in those she loved or pitied. It was a kind of distress Hester had seen before, but never more than casually, and never with so sharp and wounding an understanding.
Now it would be clumsy to try to put into words what was far too subtle, and which they both needed time to face in their own perceptions. Hester wanted to say something that would offer comfort, but anything that came to her mind sounded patronizing and would have shattered the delicate empathy between them.
“What would you like for luncheon?” she asked.
“Does it matter?” Beatrice smiled and shrugged, sensing the subtlety of moving from one subject to another quite different, and painlessly trivial.
“Not in the least.” Hester smiled ruefully. “But you might as well please yourself, rather than the cook.”
“Well not egg custard or rice pudding!” Beatrice said with feeling. “It reminds me of the nursery. It is like being a child again.”
Hester had only just returned with the tray of cold mutton, fresh pickle, and bread and butter and a large slice of fruit flan with cream, to Beatrice’s obvious approval, when there was a sharp rap on the door and Basil came in. He walked past Hester as if he had not seen her and sat down in one of the dressing chairs close to the bed, crossing his legs and making himself comfortable.
Hester was uncertain whether to leave or not. She had few tasks to do here, and yet she was extremely curious to know more of the relationship between Beatrice and her husband, a relationship which left the woman with such a feeling of isolation that she retreated to her room instead of running towards him, either for him to protect her or the better to battle it together. After all the affliction must lie in the area of family, emotions; there must be in it grief, love, hate, probably jealousy—all surely a woman’s province, the area in which her skills mattered and her strength could be used?
Now Beatrice sat propped up against her pillows and ate the cold mutton with pleasure.
Basil looked at it disapprovingly. “Is that not rather heavy for an invalid? Let me send for something better, my dear—” He reached for the bell without waiting for her answer.
“I like it,” she said with a flash of anger. “There is nothing wrong with my digestion. Hester got it for me and it is not Mrs. Boden’s fault. She’d have sent me more rice pudding if I had let her.”
“Hester?” He frowned. “Oh—the nurse.” He spoke as if she were not there, or could not hear him. “Well—I suppose if you wish it.”
“I do.” She ate a few more mouthfuls before speaking again. “I assume Mr. Monk is still coming?”
“Of course. But he seems to be accomplishing singularly little—indeed I have seen no signs that he has achieved anything at all. He keeps questioning the servants. We shall be fortunate if they do not all give notice when this is over.” He rested his elbows on the arms of the chair and put his fingertips together. “I have no idea how he hopes to come to any resolution. I think, my dear, you may have
to prepare yourself for facing the fact that we may never know who it was.” He was watching her and saw the sudden tightening, the hunch of her shoulders and the knuckles white where she held the knife. “Of course I have certain ideas,” he went on. “I cannot imagine it was any of the female staff—”
“Why not?” she asked. “Why not, Basil? It is perfectly possible for a woman to stab someone with a knife. It doesn’t take a great deal of strength. And Octavia would be far less likely to fear a woman in her room in the middle of the night than a man.”
A flicker of irritation crossed his face. “Really, Beatrice, don’t you think it is time to accept a few truths about Octavia? She had been widowed nearly two years. She was a young woman in the prime of her life—”
“So she had an affair with the footman!” Beatrice said furiously, her eyes wide, her voice cutting in its scorn. “Is that what you think of your daughter, Basil? If anyone in this house is reduced to finding their pleasure with a servant, it is far more likely to be Fenella! Except that I doubt she would ever have inspired a passion which drove anyone to murder—unless it was to murder her. Nor would she have changed her mind and resisted at the last moment. I doubt Fenella ever declined anyone—” Her face twisted in distaste and incomprehension.
His expression mirrored an equal disgust, mixed with an anger that was no sudden flash but came from deep within him.
“Vulgarity is most unbecoming, Beatrice, and even this tragedy is no excuse for it. I shall admonish Fenella if I think the occasion warrants it. I take it you are not suggesting Fenella killed Octavia in a fit of jealousy over the attentions of the footman?”
