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“I thought something much older. Would you like some Aristophanes?”
“I have no idea,” he said, making himself smile. “It sounds very heavy. Are you sure it’s funny? Does it make you laugh?”
“Oh, yes,” she said quickly. “It shows up some of the ridiculousness of people who take themselves terribly seriously. I think when you can no longer laugh at yourself, you are beginning to lose your balance.”
“Do you?” He sounded surprised. “I always thought of laughter as a little frivolous, not the stuff of real life so much as an escape.”
“Oh, not at all.” Her voice was full of feeling. “Sometimes that is when the most real things of all are said.”
“You think the absurd is the most real?” He sounded puzzled, but not critical.
“No, that is not what I mean,” she explained. “I do not mean the laughter of mockery, which devalues, but the laughter of the comic, which helps us to realize we are no more or less important than anyone else. What is funny is when things are unexpected, disproportionate. It makes us laugh because it is not as we thought, and suddenly we see the silliness of it. Isn’t that a kind of sanity?”
“I never thought of it like that.” He was turned towards her, his face absorbed in concentration. “Yes, I suppose that is the best kind of laughter. How did you discover that? Or did someone tell you?”
“I thought about it a lot. I had much time to read and to think. That is the magical thing about books. You can listen to all the greatest people who have ever lived, anywhere in the world, in any civilization. You can see what is completely different about them, things you never imagined.” Her voice gathered urgency and excitement, and Hester could see through the crack in the door that she was leaning forward towards the bed, and Robert was smiling as he watched her.
“Read me your Aristophanes,” he said softly. “Take me to Greece for a little while, and make me laugh.”
She settled back in her chair and opened her book.
Hester returned to the sewing she was doing, and a little while later she heard Robert’s voice in a loud guffaw, and then a moment after, another.
As Robert grew stronger and needed less constant care, Hester was able to leave Hill Street on occasion. At the first opportunity she wrote to Oliver Rathbone and asked if she might call upon him at his chambers in Vere Street.
He answered that he would be pleased to see her, but it would be necessary to restrict the meeting to a luncheon because of the pressure of the case he was preparing.
Accordingly, she presented herself at midday and found him pacing the floor of his chamber, his face showing the marks of tiredness and unaccustomed anxiety.
“How very nice to see you,” he said, smiling as she was shown in and the door closed behind her. “You look well.”
It was a meaningless comment, a politeness, and one that could not be returned with any honesty.
“You don’t,” she said with a shake of her head.
He stopped abruptly. It was not the reply he had expected. It was tactless, even for Hester.
“The Countess Rostova’s case is causing you concern,” she said with a faint smile.
“It is complex,” he said guardedly. “How did you know about it?” Then instantly he knew the answer. “Monk, I suppose.”
“No,” she replied a trifle stiffly. She had not seen Monk in some time. Their relationship was always difficult, except in moments of crisis, when the mutual antipathy between them dissolved in the bonds of a friendship founded in instinctive trust deeper than reason. “No, I heard from Callandra.”
“Oh.” He looked pleased. “Would you accompany me to luncheon? I am sorry I can spare so little time, but I am having to deal with other matters rather hastily in order to try to gather some of the defense in what I am sure will prove a very public affair.”
“Of course,” she accepted. “I should be delighted.”
“Good.” He led the way out of his office; through the outer room, past the clerks in their neat, high-buttoned suits, pens in hand, ledgers open in front of them; and out onto the street. They spoke of trivial matters until they were seated in a quiet corner of a public hostelry and had ordered a meal of cold game pie, vegetables and pickle.
“I am presently nursing Robert Ollenheim,” Hester said after the first mouthful of pie.
“Indeed.” Rathbone showed no particular interest, and she realized he had not heard the name before and it had no meaning for him.
“The Ollenheims knew Prince Friedrich quite well,” she explained, taking a little more pickle. “And, of course, Gisela—and the Countess Rostova too.”
“Oh. Oh, I see.” Now she had his attention. The color deepened in his cheeks as he realized how easily she had read him. He bent his he
ad and concentrated on eating his pie, avoiding her eyes. “I’m sorry. Perhaps I am a trifle preoccupied. Proof for this case may be harder to find than I had anticipated.” He looked up at her quickly with a slightly rueful smile.
