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“I suppose it is,” Fidelis said slowly, her fair brows furrowed very slightly. “There is so much one observes but will never understand. We see what appears to be the same events, and yet when we speak about them afterwards they are quite different, as if we were not discussing the same thing at all. I used to wonder if it was memory, now I know it is quite different perception in the first place. I suppose that is part of growing up.” She smiled very slightly at her own foolishness. “You realize that people do not necessarily feel or think as you do yourself. Some things cannot be communicated.”
“Can’t they?” Sylvestra challenged. “Surely that is what speech is for?”
“Words are only labels,” Fidelis replied, taking the thoughts Hester felt would be too bold of her to express them herself. “A
way of describing an idea. If you do not know what the idea is, then the label does not tell you.”
Sylvestra was plainly puzzled.
“I remember Joel trying to explain some Greek or Arabic ideas to me,” Fidelis attempted to clarify. “I did not understand, because we do not have such a concept in our culture.” She smiled ruefully. “In the end all he could do was use their word for it. It did not help in the slightest. I still had no idea what it was.” She looked at Hester. “Can you tell me what it is like to watch a young soldier die of cholera in Scutari, or see the wagonloads of mangled bodies come in from Sebastopol, or Balaclava, some of them dying of hunger and cold? I mean, can you tell me so that I will feel what you felt?”
“No.” The bare word was enough. Hester looked at this woman with the extraordinary face far more closely than before. At first she had seemed simply another well-bred wife of a successful man, come to offer her sympathy to a friend bereaved. In what had begun as an afternoon’s trivial conversation, she had touched on one of the mysteries of loneliness and misunderstanding that underlay so many incomplete relationships. Hester saw in Sylvestra’s eyes the sudden flare of her own incomprehension. Perhaps the chasm between Rhys and herself was more than his loss of speech? Maybe words would not have conveyed what had really happened to him anyway?
And what of Leighton Duff? How well had Sylvestra known him? Hester could see that thought reflected in his widow’s dark eyes even now.
Fidelis was watching Sylvestra too, her lopsided face touched with concern. How much had she been told, or had she guessed, of that night? Had she any idea of why Leighton Duff had gone to St. Giles?
“No,” Hester broke the silence. “I think there must always be experiences we can share only imperfectly.”
Fidelis smiled briefly, the shadow again behind her eyes. “The wisest thing, my dear, is to accept a certain blindness and not either to blame yourself or to blame others too much. You must succeed by your own terms, not anyone else’s.”
It was a curious remark, and Hester had the fleeting impression that it was made with some deeper meaning which Sylvestra would understand. She was not sure if it referred to Rhys or to Leighton Duff, or simply to some generality of their lives which was relevant to this new and consuming misery. Whatever it was, Fidelis Kynaston wished Sylvestra to believe she understood it.
Their tea was cold and the tiny sandwiches eaten when Arthur Kynaston returned, looking slightly flushed but far less tense than when he had gone up.
“How is he?” his mother asked before Sylvestra could speak.
“He seems in good spirits,” he replied hastily. He was too young, too clear-faced, to lie well. He had obviously been profoundly shaken but was trying to conceal it from Sylvestra. “I’m sure when his cuts and bruises have healed, he’ll feel a different man. He was really quite interested in Belzoni. I promised to bring him some drawings—if that’s all right?”
“Of course,” Sylvestra said quickly. “Yes … yes, please do.” She seemed relieved. At last something was returning to normal; it was a moment when things were back to the sanity, the wholeness, of the past.
Fidelis rose to her feet and put a hand on her son’s arm. “That would be most kind. Now I think we should allow Mrs. Duff a little time to herself.” She turned and bade Hester good-bye, then looked at Sylvestra. “If there is anything whatever I can do, my dear, you have only to let me know. If you wish to talk, I am always ready to listen—and then forget … selectively. I have an excellent ability to forget.”
“There are so many things I would like to forget,” Sylvestra replied almost under her breath. “I can’t forget what I don’t understand. Ridiculous, isn’t it? You would think that would be the easiest. Why St. Giles? That is what the police keep asking me and I cannot answer them.”
“You probably never will,” Fidelis said wryly. “You might be best advised, happiest, if you do not guess.” She kissed Sylvestra lightly on each cheek and then took her leave, Arthur a few steps behind her.
Hester offered no comment, and Sylvestra did not raise the matter. Hester had been present as a courtesy, and she was owed no confidences. They both went up to see if Rhys was still in the good spirits Arthur had described, and found him lying half asleep and apparently at as much ease as was possible in his pain.
That evening Eglantyne Wade called. It was the first time she had come since the funeral, no doubt knowing how ill Rhys was and not wishing to intrude. Hester was curious to see what kind of woman Dr. Wade’s sister might be. Hester hoped she would prove to be not unlike him, a woman of courage, imagination and individuality, perhaps not unlike Fidelis Kynaston.
In the event, she proved to be far prettier, or far more conventional in appearance, and Hester felt a stab of disappointment. It was totally unreasonable. Why should his sister have any of his intelligence or inner courage of the spirit? Her own brother, Charles, was nothing at all like her. He was kind, in his own way, honest, and infinitely predictable.
She replied politely to Sylvestra’s introduction, searching Miss Wade’s face for some sign of inner fire, and not finding it. All she met was a bland, blue stare which seemed without thought, or any but the mildest interest. Even Sylvestra’s remark on Hester’s service in the Crimea provoked no surprise but the usual murmur of respect which mention of Scutari and Sebastopol always earned. It seemed as if Eglantyne Wade were not even truly listening.
Sylvestra had promised Hester that she might have the evening free to do as she pleased. She had even suggested that Hester might like to go out somewhere, visit friends or relatives. Since Oliver Rathbone had asked that if she were permitted an evening’s respite from her new case she would use it to dine with him, she had sent a note to his office at midday. By late afternoon she received the reply that he would be honored if she would allow him to send a carriage for her that they might dine together. Therefore at seven she waited in the hall, dressed in her one really good gown, and felt a distinct ripple of excitement when the doorbell rang and Wharmby informed her that it was for her.
It was a bitter night, a rime of ice on the cobbles, steam rising from the horses’ flanks, and the wreaths of fog curling around the lamps and drifting in choking clammy patches. Smoke and soot hung heavy in the air above, blotting out the stars, and a daggerlike wind scythed down the tunnels made by the high house walls on either side of the street.
She had dined at Rathbone’s home before, but with Monk also present, and to discuss a case and their strategy to fight it. She had also dined with Rathbone several times at his father’s house in Primrose Hill, but she had gathered from the invitation that this was to be in some public place, as was only proper if they were not to be accompanied by any other person.
The cab drew up at a very handsome inn, and the footman immediately opened the door and offered his hand to assist her to alight. She was shown into a small alcove off the main dining room where Rathbone was waiting.
He turned from the mantel, where he had been standing in front of the fire. He was formally dressed in black with icy white shirt front, the light from the chandelier catching his fair hair. He smiled and watched her come in until she was in the center of the room, and the door closed behind her, before he came forward. He took her hands in his.
Her dress was gray-blue, severely cut, but she knew it flattered her eyes and her strong, intelligent face. Frills had always looked absurd on her, out of style with her character.
“Thank you for coming in such extreme haste,” he said warmly. “It is a most ungentlemanly way of snatching an opportunity to see you purely for pleasure, and not some wretched business, either of yours or of mine. I am happy to say that all my current cases are merely matters of litigation and require no detecting at all.”
