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“Oh—I see. Would you like some tea? Or do you prefer cocoa? And oatcakes, or shortbread?”
“Tea, if you please, and the shortbread looks excellent,” Hester accepted, taking a seat opposite.
The woman poured tea and passed it to Hester, then proffered the plate with the shortbread. “Mother-in-law has hers upstairs,” she went on. “And of course all the men have gone to work, and Eilish is not up yet. She never is at this hour.”
“Is she … poorly?” As soon as Hester spoke she knew she should not have. If a member of the household chose not to rise until nearly lunchtime, it was not her business to inquire the reason.
“Good gracious no! Oh dear, I did not introduce myself. How remiss of me. I am Deirdra Farraline—Alastair’s wife.” She looked inquiringly at Hester to see if her explanation meant anything, and saw from her face that she already knew who he was. “Then there is Oonagh,” she continued. “Mrs. McIvor, who wrote to you, and then Kenneth, and Eilish—who is Mrs. Fyffe, although I never think of her like that, I don’t know why—and lastly Griselda, who now lives in London.”
“I see. Thank you.”
Hester sipped her tea and bit into the shortbread. It tasted even better than it looked, rich and crumbly, melting on the tongue.
“Don’t worry about Eilish,” Deirdra went on conversationally. “She never gets up at a decent hour, but she’s perfectly well. One has only to look at her to see that. A charming creature, and the loveliest woman in Edinburgh, I shouldn’t wonder—but also the laziest. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m very fond of her,” she added quickly. “But not to deny her faults.”
Hester smiled. “If we cared only for perfection, we should be very lonely.”
“I quite agree. Have you been to Edinburgh before?”
“No. No, I have never even been to Scotland.”
“Ah! Have you always lived in London?”
“No, I spent some time in the Crimea.”
“Good gracious!” Deirdra’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh. Oh, of course. The war. Yes, Oonagh said something about getting one of Miss Nightingale’s nurses for Mother-in-law. I can’t see why. She only wants a little dose of medicine, hardly an army nurse! Did you sail out there? It must have taken ages.” She screwed up her face earnestly and took another piece of shortbread. “If only man could fly. Then one would not have to go ’round Africa at all, one could simply go straight across Europe and Asia.”
“One doesn’t have to go ’round Africa to the Crimea,” Hester pointed out gently. “It is on the Black Sea. One goes through the Mediterranean and up the Bosphorus.”
Deirdra waved away the irrelevance with a small, strong hand. “But one has to go ’round Africa to get to India, or China. It is the same principle.”
Hester could think of no suitable reply, and returned to her tea.
“Don’t you find this terribly … tame … after the Crimea?” Deirdra asked curiously.
Hester might have assumed that the remark was idle conversation, had she not seen the intensity in Deirdra’s face and the obvious intelligence in her eyes. She wondered how to answer her. The chores of nursing were frequently tedious, although patients seldom were. Certainly the danger and the challenge of the Crimea were gone, as was the comradeship. But then the hunger, the cold, the fear and the terrible rage and pity were gone also. In its place had been the emotional tumult of working with Monk. She had met William Monk when he had been a police inspector investigating the Grey case, and then, through Callandra, she had assisted him with the Moidore case so shortly afterwards. But he had stormed out of the police force and been consequently forced to practice as a private agent of inquiry. She had again found herself calling for his help for Edith Sobel when General Carlyon had been murdered. And she had been the ideal person to take a position in the hospital when Nurse Barrymore’s body had been found.
But the relationship with Monk
was far too complicated to try to explain, and certainly not something likely to recommend her to a highly respectable family like the Farralines as a suitable companion for their mother.
Deirdra was still waiting, her eyes on Hester’s face.
“Sometimes,” she admitted, “I am delighted to miss the conditions, but I miss the companionship also, and that is hard.”
“And the challenge?” Deirdra pressed, leaning forward over the table. “Is it not a wonderful thing to try to accomplish something immensely difficult?”
“Not when you have no chance of success, and the pain of failure is other people’s suffering.”
Deirdra’s face fell. “No, of course not. I’m sorry, that was heartless of me. I did not mean it quite as it sounded. I was thinking of the challenge to the mind, to the inventiveness, to one’s own aspirations—I …” She stopped as the door opened and Oonagh came in. Oonagh glanced from one to the other of them, then her face softened in a smile.
“I hope you are comfortable, Miss Latterly, and being well looked after?”
“Oh yes, indeed, thank you,” Hester answered.
“I have been asking Miss Latterly about her experiences, or at least some of them,” Deirdra said enthusiastically. “It sounds most stimulating.”
Oonagh sat down and helped herself to tea. She looked across at Hester doubtfully.
