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Now it was late in the evening for the household of an invalid, and they had already dined: Perdita downstairs with her brother-in-law, Athol; Gabriel in his room with Hester’s assistance. Hester herself had eaten only briefly, in the servants’ hall, and then left as soon as his tray was ready to bring upstairs.
This was a time of day when she had no specific duties, simply to be available should she be required. Gabriel would ring the bell beside his bed when he was ready to retire or if he felt in need of assistance. There was no mending to do and her other duties had long since been attended to. She had borrowed a book from the library but was finding it tedious.
It was just after ten when at last the bell rang, and she was delighted to close the book, without bothering to mark her place, and walk the short dista
nce along the landing to Gabriel’s room. She knocked on the door.
“Come in!” he answered immediately.
It was the largest room on this floor, turned into a place where he could not only sleep at night but read or sleep during the day, and in time write letters, or receive visitors, and feel as much at ease as was possible in his circumstances.
She closed the door behind her. His bed was at the far end, a magnificent piece with elaborately carved mahogany headboard and footboard, and presently piled with pillows so he could sit up with some comfort. A special rest had been designed and made both to support his book or paper and to hold it open so he could read, or keep it from moving if he was writing. Fortunately he was right-handed, and it was his left arm he had lost.
But on first seeing him it was not the empty sleeve one noticed but the terrible disfigurement to his face, the left side of which was so deeply scarred from cheekbone to jaw that the flesh had not knitted and the features were distorted by the pull of the muscles and the healing skin. There was a raw red line which would never change, and white crisscross fine ridges where it had been stitched together hastily on the battlefield. After the initial shock it was possible to imagine quite easily how handsome he had been before the injury. It was a face almost beautiful in its simplicity of line, its balance between nose and cheek and jaw. The clear brow and hazel-gray eyes were unblemished even now. The dark brown, wavy hair was thick. His mouth was pinched with pain.
“I’ve had enough of this book,” he said ruefully. “It’s not very interesting.”
“Neither was mine.” She smiled at him. “I didn’t even bother to mark my place. Would you like me to find you something else for tomorrow?”
“Yes, please, although I don’t know what.”
She took the book away and carefully removed the stand and folded it up. It was well designed and quite light to manage. His bed was rumpled where he had moved about restlessly. He was not only in physical distress from his amputation, the flesh not healing properly, the phantom pain of a limb which was not there; even more acute was the emotional distress of feeling both ugly and incomplete, powerless. He was without a role in a life which stretched interminably ahead of him containing nothing more than being dependent upon the help of others, an object of revulsion to the uninitiated in the horror of war, and one of pity to those familiar. Perhaps the greatest burden of all was the fact that he was unable to share his feelings with his wife. His existence shackled her to a man she was embarrassed even to look at, let alone touch. He had offered to release her from the marriage, as honor required. And as honor required, she had refused.
“Any subject in particular?” Hester asked, stretching out her hand to assist him in throwing back the covers and climbing from the bed so she could remake it. He was still quite often caught off balance by the alteration in his weight since the arm had gone.
He forced himself to smile, and she knew it was an effort, made for her sake, and perhaps from a lifetime of good manners.
“I can’t think of anything,” he admitted. “I’ve already read everything I knew I wanted to.”
“I’ll have to see if I can find you something quite different,” she said conversationally, leaving him to sit on the bedside chair and beginning to strip off the bedclothes to replace them smoothly. She did not want to talk of trivialities to him, and yet it was so difficult to know what to say that would be honest and not hurtful, not intrusive into areas he was perhaps not yet ready to explore or to expose to anyone else. After all, she had been there only a few days and was in a position neither of family member and friend nor yet of servant. She already knew a great many of his intimate physical feelings and needs far better than anyone else, but could only guess at his history, his character or his emotions.
“What were you reading?” he asked, leaning back in the chair.
“A novel about people I could not bring myself to like,” she replied with a laugh. “I am afraid I did not care in the slightest whether they ever found a solution to their problems or not. I think I shall try something factual next, perhaps a description of travels or places I shall almost certainly not visit.”
He was silent for several moments.
She worked at the bed without haste.
“There’s quite a lot about India,” he said at last.
She caught an inflection in his voice of more than a mere remark. He must be appallingly lonely. He saw few people but Perdita, and in her visits neither of them knew what to say and struggled with platitudes, silences and then sudden rushes of words. He was almost relieved when she went, and yet was sharply aware of his isolation and overwhelming sense of despair and helplessness.
His brother, Athol, was what was known as a “muscular Christian”—a man given to unnatural ebullience, overbearingly vigorous views about health and morality, and an optimism which at times was beyond enduring. He refused to acknowledge Gabriel’s pain or attempt the slightest understanding of it. Perhaps it frightened him, because his philosophy had no answer for it. It was something beyond anyone’s control, and Athol’s sense of safety came from his conviction that man was, or could and should become, master of his life.
“You must know India better than most writers,” she said, forgetting the linen for a moment and looking at Gabriel, trying to read the expression in his eyes.
“Parts of it,” he agreed, watching her equally intently, also seeking to judge her reaction, what he could tell her with some hope she would not be overwhelmed or distressed by events beyond her comprehension. “Are you interested in India?”
She was not particularly, but she was interested in him. She moderated the truth. “I am in current affairs, especially military ones.”
His eyes clouded with doubt. “Military ones, Miss Latterly?” There was a hint of doubt in his voice now, as if he mistrusted her motives, fearing she was accommodating him. He must be very sensitive to condescension. “Have you a brother in the army?”
She smiled that he automatically assumed it would not be a lover. He must see her as too old for such a thing, or not comely enough. It was unthinking. He would not mean to hurt.
“No, Lieutenant, my elder brother is in business, and my younger brother was killed in the Crimea. My interest in military history is my own.”
He knew he had been clumsy, even though he was not sure how. It was there in his cheeks and his eyes.
