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And there was the other idea at the back of her mind, that if she absorbed all the pain now, in some way when it really happened she would be prepared.
Her misery was interrupted by the sound of a key in the lock and the door swinging open. There was no privacy here; it was both totally isolated and yet open at any time to intrusion.
The wardress she hated most stood glaring at her, her pale hair drawn back in a knot on her head so tightly it dragged the skin around her eyes. Her face was almost expressionless. Only a tiny flicker at the corner of her mouth betrayed both her contempt and the satisfaction she had in showing it.
“Stand up, Latterly,” she ordered. “There’s someone ’ere ter see yer.” She invested the announcement with both surprise and anger. “Yer lucky. Better make the best of it. Can’t be long now till yer goin’ ter trial, then there won’t be people comin’ and goin’ all hours.”
“I shan’t be here to care,” Hester said tartly.
The wardress’s thin eyebrows rose.
“Think yer goin’ ’ome, do yer? That’ll be the day! They’ll ’ang yer, my fine lady, by yer skinny white neck, until ye’re dead. No point nobody comin’ te see ye then!”
Hester looked at her slowly, carefully, meeting her eyes.
“I’ve seen too many people hanged, and found innocent afterwards, to argue with you,” she said clearly. “The difference is that that doesn’t bother you. You want to see someone hanged, and the truth doesn’t interest you.”
A dull red color washed up the woman’s face and the heavy muscles in her neck tightened. She took half a step forward.
“You watch yer mouth, Latterly, or I’ll ’ave yer! You just remember who ’olds the keys ’ere—an’ it ain’t you. I got power—and yer’ll be glad enough to ’ave me on yer side—when the end comes. I seen a lot o’ people think ’emselves brave—till the night before the rope.”
“After a month in your charge, the rope may not seem so bad,” Hester said bitterly, but inside her stomach was knotted and her breath came unevenly. “Who is my visitor?”
She had hoped it would be Rathbone. He was her lifeline to sanity, and hope. Callandra had been twice, but somehow Hester found herself very emotional when she saw her. Perhaps it was Callandra’s very obvious affection and the depth of her concern. Hester had felt uncontrollably lonely after she had gone. It had taken all the willpower she possessed not to give in to a fit of weeping. It was primarily the thought of the wardress’s returning, and her contempt and satisfaction, that prevented her.
Now beyond the wardress’s powerful shoulder she could see not Rathbone but her brother Charles. He looked pale and profoundly unhappy.
Suddenly memory overwhelmed her. She was almost drowned in the recollection of his face when she had arrived home from the Crimea after her parents’ deaths and Charles had met her at the house to tell her the full extent of the tragedy, not only the death by suicide of their father, but the broken heart so shortly afterwards which had taken their mother also, and the financial ruin left behind. He had just the same, familiar look of embarrassment and anxiety now. He looked curiously emotionally naked, and seeing him, Hester felt like a child again.
He came in past the wardress, walking a little around her, his eyes intent on Hester.
Hester was standing, as she had been bidden. Charles’s eyes glanced around the cell, taking in the details of the bare walls, the single deep window high above the level of anyone’s sight, the gray sky beyond the bars. Then he looked at the cot with its built-in commode. Lastly he looked at Hester, in her plain blue-gray nursing dress. He looked at her face reluctantly, as if he could not bear to see what must be there in it.
“How are you?” he asked, his voice husky.
She had been going to tell him, unburden herself of the loneliness and the fear, but looking at his tiredness, his red-rimmed eyes, and knowing he could do nothing whatever to help, except hurt as well and feel guilty because he was powerless, she found it impossible. She did not even consider it.
“I’m perfectly well,” she said in a clear, precise voice. “No one could say it is pleasant, but I have survived a great deal worse without coming to any harm.”
His whole body relaxed and some of the tension eased out of his face. He wanted to believe her and he was not going to question what she said.
“Yes—yes, of course you have,” he agreed. “You are a remarkable woman.”
The wardress had been waiting to give him instructions to recall her, but she felt excluded by the exchange, and she withdrew and slammed the door without speaking again.
Charles jumped at the sound, and swung around to see the blank, iron barrier, handleless on the inside.
“It’s all right,” Hester said quickly. “She’ll be back when your time is up.”
He looked at her, forcing himself to smile, but it was a sickly gesture.
“Do they feed you properly? Keep you warm enough? It feels cold here to me.”
“It’s not bad,” she lied. “And really it isn’t so important. There must be many people who never have better.”
He was struggling for something to say. Polite conversation seemed so ridiculous, and yet he dreaded the realities.
Hester took the decision for him, otherwise the whole visit would have come and gone and they would never have said anything that mattered.
