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“Yes …”
“And their wives?”
“Yes. I knew several.” She wondered why Sylvestra asked.
“Amalia has told me something of the mutiny in India,” Sylvestra went on. “Of course, that was three years ago now, I know, but it seems as if things will be changed forever by it. More and more white women are being sent over there to keep their husbands company. Amalia says that it is to keep the soldiers apart from the native Indians, so they can never trust and be taken unaware like that again. Do you suppose she is right?”
“I should think it very likely,” Hester replied candidly. She did not know a great deal about the circumstances of the Indian Mutiny. It had occurred too close to the end of the war in the Crimea, when she was deeply concerned with the tragic death of both her parents, with finding a means of supporting herself, and with accommodating to the dramatically different way of life afforded to her when she returned to England.
Attempting to adapt to the life of a single woman rather past the best age for marriage, not possessed of the sort of family connections to make her sought after, nor the money to provide for herself or a handsome dowry, and unfortunately not of great natural beauty or winning ways, had made the task extremely difficult. She was also not of a docile disposition.
She had read the fearful stories and heard accounts of starvation and massacre, but she had not known anyone who had been affected personally.
“It is hard to imagine such atrocity,” Sylvestra said thoughtfully. “I am beginning to realize how very little I know. It is disturbing …” She hesitated, her hands idle, the linen held up but quite still. “And yet there is something not unlike exhilaration in it also. Amalia wrote to me of the most extraordinary incident.” She shook her head, her face troubled, eyes far away. “It seems that the siege of Cawnpore was particularly brutal. The women and children were starved for three weeks, then the survivors were taken to the river and placed upon boats, where the native soldiers—sepoys, I believe they are called—fell upon them. Those hundred and twenty-five or so who still survived even that were taken to a building known as the Bibighar, and after a further eighteen days were slaughtered—by butchers brought in from the bazaar for the purpose.”
Hester did not interrupt.
“It seems when the Highland Regiment relieved Cawnpore, they found the hacked-up bodies and exacted a fearful revenge, killing every one of the sepoys there. What I wanted to mention was the tale Amalia wrote me of one soldier’s wife, named Bridget Widdowson, who during the siege was sent to guard eleven mutineers, because at that time there were no men available. This she accomplished perfectly, marching up and down in front of them all day, terrifying them immobile, and it was only when she was finally relieved by a regular soldier that they all escaped. Is that not remarkable?”
“Indeed it is,” Hester agreed wholeheartedly. She saw the wonder and the amazed admiration in Sylvestra’s eyes. There was something stirring in her which was going to find the loneliness of this house without her husband, the restrictions of society widowhood and her enforced idleness as a kind of imprisonment. Rhys’s dependency would only add to it, in time. “But the heat and the endemic disease are things I should find very trying,” she said to counter it.
“Would you?” It was a genuine question, not an idle remark. “Why did you go out to the Crimea, Miss Latterly?”
Hester was startled.
“Oh, forgive me,” Sylvestra apologized immediately. “That was an intrusive question. You may have had all manner of private reasons which are none of my concern. I do beg your pardon.”
Hester knew what she was thinking. She laughed outright. “It was not a broken affair of the heart, I promise you. I wanted the adventure, the fre
edom to use such brains and talents as I have where I would be sufficiently needed that necessity would remove prejudices against women’s initiative.”
“I imagine you succeeded?” There was vivid interest in Sylvestra’s face.
Hester smiled. “Most assuredly.”
“My husband would have admired that,” Sylvestra said with certainty. “He loved courage and the fire to be different, inventive.” She looked rueful. “I sometimes wonder if he would have liked to have gone somewhere like India, or perhaps Africa. Amalia’s letters would thrill him, but I had a feeling they also awoke a restlessness in him, even a kind of envy. He would have loved new frontiers, the challenge of discovery, the chance of great leadership. He was an outstanding man, Miss Latterly. He had a most remarkable mind. Amalia gets her courage from him, and Constance too.”
“And Rhys?” Hester said quietly.
The shadow returned to Sylvestra’s face. “Yes … Rhys too. He wanted so much for Rhys. Is it terrible of me to say that there is a kind of way in which I am glad he did not live to see this? … Rhys so ill, unable to speak … and so … so changed.” She shook her head a little. “It would have hurt him beyond bearing.” She stared down at her hands. “Then I wish with all my heart that Leighton could have lived longer, and they could have grown closer together. Now it is too late. Rhys will never know his father man-to-man, never appreciate his qualities as I did.”
Hester thought of Monk’s vision of what had happened in the dark alley in St. Giles. She hoped with an overwhelming fierceness that it was not true. It was hideous. For Sylvestra it would be more than she could live through and keep her sanity.
“You will have to tell him,” Hester said aloud. “There will be a great deal you can say to make his father’s true character and skills real to him. He will need your company as he recovers, and your encouragement.”
“Do you think so?” Sylvestra asked quickly, hope and doubt in her eyes. “At the moment he seems to find even my presence distressing. There is much anger inside him, Miss Latterly. Do you understand it?”
Hester did not, and it frightened her with its underlying cruelty. She had seen that exultancy in the power to hurt a number of times, and it chilled her even more than Monk’s words.
“I daresay it is only the frustration of not being able to speak,” she lied. “And of course the physical pain.”
“Yes … yes, I suppose so.” Sylvestra picked up her embroidery again and resumed stitching.
The maid came in and banked up the fire, taking the coal bucket away with her to refill it.
The following evening Fidelis Kynaston called again, as she had promised she would, and Sylvestra urged Hester to take time away from Ebury Street and do as she pleased, perhaps visit with friends. She had accepted with pleasure, most particularly because Oliver Rathbone had again invited her to dine with him and to attend the theater, if she cared to.
Normally clothes were of less interest to her than to most women, but that evening she wished she had a wardrobe full of gowns to choose from, all selected for their ability to flatter, to soften the line of shoulder and bosom, to give color and light to the complexion and depth to the eyes. Since she had already worn her best gown on the previous occasion, she was reduced to wearing a dark green which was over three years old—and really a great deal more severe than she would have chosen had she any other available to her. Still, she must make the best of what she had and then think about it no more. She dressed her hair softly. It was straight and unwilling to fall into the prescribed coils and loops, but it was thick, and there was a nice sheen on it. Her skin had not sufficient color, but pinching it now would serve no purpose by the time she arrived at the theater, and in a hansom it would hardly matter.
