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The judge turned to Hester.
With a bare minimum of words, very quietly to a silent court, she described the bruising and the tearing she had seen, and likened it to other such injuries she had treated in the Crimea, and what the soldiers themselves had told her.
She was thanked and excused. She returned to the body of the court feeling too numb with pity to be more than dimly aware of the press of people near her. She did not even move immediately when she felt a man close to her and an arm around her.
“You did the right thing,” Monk said gently, holding her with surprising strength, as if he would support her weight. “You could not change the truth by concealing it.”
“Some truths are better not known,” she whispered back.
“I don’t think so, not truths like this. They are only better learned at certain times and in certain ways.”
“What about Sylvestra? How will she bear it?”
“Little by little, a day at a time, and by knowing that whatever is built upon now will last, because it stands on reality, not on lies. You cannot make her brave; that is something no one can do for someone else.” He stopped, still holding her close.
“But why?” she said almost to herself. “Why did they risk everything to do something so … pointless?” And even as she said it remarks of Wade’s came back to her, with utterly different meaning now, remarks about nature refining the race by winnowing out the unfit, the morally inferior. And she remembered Sylvestra’s stories of Leighton Duff’s love of danger in his steeplechasing days, the excitement of risks, the elation of having taken a chance and beaten the odds. “What about Kynaston?” she whispered to Monk.
“Power,” he replied. “The power to terrify and humiliate. Perhaps the righteous image he created for his pupils’ parents was more than he could endure. We’ll probably never know. Frankly, I don’t care. I’m a damned sight more concerned for the families they leave to struggle on … for Sylvestra and Rhys.”
“I think Fidelis Kynaston will help,” she replied. “They will help each other. And perhaps Miss Wade too. They all have something appalling to face.
“Perhaps they will go to India?” she thought aloud. “All of them, when Rhys is better. They couldn’t stay here.”
“Maybe,” he agreed. “Although it is amazing what you can face, if you have to.” He would tell her about Runcorn some other time, later on, when they were alone and it was more appropriate.
“They’d like India,” she insisted. “There is a great need for people out there who know something about nursing, especially women. I read it in Amalia’s letters.”
“Do they know anything about nursing?” he asked with a smile.
“They could learn.”
He smiled more widely, but she did not see it.
The jury declined to retire. They returned a verdict of not guilty.
Hester slid her hand into Monk’s and leaned even closer to him.
