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He did not flinch.
She smiled slightly.
He opened his mouth. His throat tightened, but no sound came. He breathed more rapidly, swallowing. He had to gasp to stop choking, but still there was no voice, no word.
She put her hand up to his lips. “It’s all right. Wait a little. Give it time to heal. Is … is there something in particular you want to say?”
Nothing. His eyes were full of dread and misery.
She waited, struggling to understand.
Slowly his eyes filled with tears and he shook his head.
She brushed his dark hair from his brow. “Are you ready to go to sleep?”
He shook his head.
“Shall I find something to read to you?”
He nodded.
She went to the bookshelf. Should she even try to censor out anything which might give him pain, remind him of his condition or reawaken memory? Might it not end in being more conspicuous by its very absence?
She picked up a translation of the Iliad. It would be full of battles and deaths, but the language would be beautiful, and it would be alive with imagery and light, epic loves, gods and goddesses, ancient cities and wine-dark seas … a world of the mind away from the alleys of St. Giles.
She sat in the chair beside his bed and he lay still and listened to her, his eyes never leaving her face. Eleven o’clock came and went, midnight, one o’clock, and at last he fell asleep. She marked the place and closed the book, tiptoeing out and to her own room, where she lay down on the bed and fell asleep herself, still fully clothed.
She awoke late and still tired, but she had slept better than any night since she came to Ebury Street. She went immediately to Rhys and found him restless but not yet ready to wake sufficiently to take breakfast.
Downstairs she met Sylvestra, who came across the hall as soon as she saw Hester, her face tense with anxiety.
“How is he? Has he spoken yet?” She closed her eyes, impatient with herself. “I’m sorry. I swore I would not ask that. Dr. Wade says I must be patient … but …” She stopped.
“Of course it is difficult,” Hester assured her. “Every day seems like a week. But we sat reading till very late last night, and he seems to have slept well. He was much more at ease.”
Some of the tension slipped out of Sylvestra’s body; her shoulders lowered a little and she attempted to smile.
“Come into the dining room. I’m sure you have not breakfasted yet. Neither have I.”
“Thank you.” Hester accepted not only because it was a request from her employer but because she hoped that gradually she might learn a little more about Rhys, and thus be able to be of more comfort to him. Comfort of mind was about all she could offer him, apart from helping him to eat, to stay clean and attend to his immediate personal wants. So far Dr. Wade had not permitted her to change any dressings but the most superficial, and Rhys’s greatest injuries were internal, where no one could reach them.
The dining room was pleasantly furnished, but like the rest of the house, in too heavy a style for Hester’s taste. The table and sideboard were Elizabethan oak, solid and powerful, an immense weight of wood. The carved chairs at each end of the table had high backs and ornate armrests. There were no mirrors, which might have given more light and impression of space. The curtains were wine-and-pink brocade, tied back with tasseled cords and splayed wide to show their richness and the burgundy-colored lining. The walls were hung with a dozen or more pictures.
But the room was extremely comfortable. The chairs were padded on their seats and the fire blazed up in the inglenook hearth, filling the room with warmth.
Sylvestra did not wish to eat. She picked at a piece of toast, undecided whether to have Dundee marmalade or apricot preserves. She poured a cup of tea and sipped it before it was cool enough.
Hester wondered what kind of a man Leighton Duff had been, how they had met and what had happened in the relationship during its twenty-five or so years. What friends had Sylvestra to help her in her grief? They would all have been at the funeral, but that had been almost immediate, in the few days when Rhys had been in the hospital and before Hester had arrived. Now the formal acknowledgments of death were over and Sylvestra was left alone to face the empty days afterwards.
Apparently Dr. Wade’s sister was one who was eager to call as soon as she could and he himself seemed to be more than merely a professional acquaintance.
“Have you always lived here?” Hester asked.
“Yes,” Sylvestra replied, looking up quickly as if she too were grateful for something to say but had simply not known how to begin. “Yes, ever since I was married.”
“It’s extremely comfortable.”
“Yes …” Sylvestra answered automatically, as if it were the expected thing to say and she did it as she had always done. It no longer had meaning. The poverty and hour-to-hour dangers
