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“And I’ll. . I’ll go home?” Mary said, watching Hester intently. “And will Dr. Beck tell me what to do? I mean. . he’s a doctor; he’d know better than anyone, wouldn’t he?” That was a challenge, almost a plea.
Kristian could tell her not to eat her hair, but that was not what she meant. She was looking for some other kind of instruction, reassurance.
“Of course he will, but I expect most of it you know for yourself,” Hester answered.
An extraordinary look came into Mary’s eyes: hope, terror, and a kind of desperate anger as if she were newly aware of something which was monstrously unjust. “No, I don’t. And Mama won’t know! She won’t know this!”
“Would it help if we tell her?” Hester suggested.
Now, Mary was quite clearly frightened. She seemed to be faced with a dilemma beyond her courage to solve.
“Is your mother not very good at looking after things?” Hester said gently. She knew Mary’s father had been a country parson, a younger son of a well-to-do family.
“She’s good at everything!” Mary asserted angrily, pulling the bedclothes more tightly up to her chest. “She always knows what to do.” That came out like a charge. Resentment and fear smoldered in her eyes. Then she looked away, down at her hands.
“I see.” Hester thought that perhaps she did, just a glimpse. “Well, it doesn’t need to be decided now,” she said firmly. “But I’m sure Dr. Beck would be happy to tell you what you need to do, and I will also. Will that make you feel better?”
Mary’s hands relaxed a fraction. “Will you write it for me, in case. .”
“Of course. You will have something to refer to,” Hester agreed. “And you can practice before you go home.”
“Practice?”
“Practice being certain what is the right thing to do.”
“Oh! Yes. Thank you.”
Hester stayed a few minutes longer, then went to look for Kristian.
Later, she passed Fermin Thorpe in the corridor. He looked impatient as always, and was affecting not to see her, because she made him feel uncomfortable. He had once lost his temper with her, and he hated being out of control of anything, most of all his own behavior. His color was high, and he had a glitter in his eyes as if his last encounter had displeased him.
She found Callandra in the apothecary’s room, and the moment she saw Hester she concluded her discussion and came out. “Have you heard anything?” she said as soon as the door was closed. “What has William found?”
Hester had not seen Callandra since the funeral and the terrible evening afterwards. She had lain awake arguing with herself over whether she would tell Callandra about Elissa and the gambling, and then, when she realized she had to, she tortured herself as to how she would do it and still leave Kristian some privacy, particularly from Callandra’s knowledge of his pain.
But there was a chill of fear inside her that they could not afford the luxury of protecting embarrassment, even pride. At the very best, Callandra would have to know one day. It would be easier to tell her in Kristian’s own time-his words, and his decision. But at the worst, it might be a matter of survival, and all knowledge was necessary to protect against betrayal by error.
“What is it?” Callandra said quietly.
“Elissa Beck gambled,” Hester replied, then, seeing the look of incomprehension in Callandra’s face, she went on. “Compulsively. She lost everything she had, so that Kristian had to sell their belongings, even the furniture.” Callandra seemed able to take in the meaning of what was said only slowly, as if it were a complicated story. “It’s an addiction,” Hester went on. “Like drinking, or taking opium. Some people can’t stop, no matter what it does to them, even if they lose their money, their jewelry, pictures, ornaments, the furniture out of their houses. . everything. Elissa was like that.”
The real horror of it was dawning on Callandra. Perhaps she realized now why she had never been asked to Kristian’s house. She must also realize how vast a part of his life she knew nothing of, the pain, the embarrassment, the fears of discovery and ruin. These were at the heart of his existence, every day, and she had had no knowledge of them, shared nothing because he had never allowed her to know.
“I’m sorry,” Hester said gently. “If we are to help Kristian we can’t afford ignorance.”
“Could it have been someone to whom she owed money?” Callandra began.
“Of course,” Hester agreed too quickly.
Callandra’s face tightened into blank misery. “Kristian would have paid. You said everything was gone, at least you implied it. Ruined gamblers commit suicide. I’ve known soldiers to do that. Do creditors really murder them? And what about the other poor woman?” She shivered convulsively. “Surely she didn’t gamble, too?”
“She was possibly the one they intended to kill.” Hester was trying to convince herself as much as Callandr
a. “They are trying to find out as much as they can about her.”
“Perhaps it was a lover’s quarrel that went much too far?” Callandra’s voice hovered on the edge of conviction. “What about the artist?”
“Perhaps.”
