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Hester made a sudden decision. ‘You are not entirely right. I admire the way you set your own ambitions and desires aside to devote yourself to your father’s needs.’ She adjusted the truth a little, not to save herself but to save the memory of her father’s limitations, which still hurt her with a deep, unbearable pain. ‘When my father was ill I was in the Crimea, nursing soldiers. I did not even know he needed me. I had gone because I believed it was the right thing to do, but also because I wanted the freedom and the adventure. I wanted something far more than the sort of domestic life I would have become locked into if I had stayed here.’
She saw the sudden emotion in Adrienne’s face: deep, complex and, to Hester, unreadable. There was both surprise and pain in it, and a gentleness towards Hester she had never seen before, as if Adrienne had suddenly seen something in her that she recognised.
Her own confusion mirrored it. This was a woman she had disliked. She had come out of duty and a desire to find some way that Bryson Radnor could be made to pay at least something for his crimes. To her surprise, she found she now meant what she was saying.
‘I was not there for my father, or my mother, when they most needed me. By the time I came home from the Crimea, it was too late. They were both dead. You did better than that.’
The silence lasted so long Hester was afraid that Adrienne was not going to answer.
‘Did you know he was ill when you went?’ she asked at last.
‘No.’ That was completely honest. No one could have foreseen his ruin. The fraud that had brought it about was not even thought of at the time of Hester’s departure.
‘Then you are blaming yourself simply out of grief,’ Adrienne told her. She said it gently.
For a moment they sat in the beautiful room in silent companionship, then Hester forced her mind back to the reason she had come. Was there still any need for her to say the things she had planned? Maybe it was she who was wrong, not Adrienne. Maybe Radnor would not go off on adventures and leave Adrienne behind. And if he took her, perhaps that was what she wanted. She would share in whatever he did, even love it as much as he did. As long as it was her choice, it was really none of Hester’s concern.
How could she decide whether she should say anything further, or simply wish Adrienne well, and leave? Radnor was still guilty of all that they had believed of him, but there was no proof. Would pursuing it damage the course of medical discovery, without obtaining justice for anyone? Vengeance was a bitter dish, and in the end helped no one.
The silence was stretching too long.
‘I imagine your father will continue to travel,’ Hester said as naturally as she could. ‘He spoke at times of some marvellous places he had been to. It made me long to go too; see sights I can barely imagine, they were so beautiful. Tropical islands, skies of such exquisite shades they made the earth seem luxurious beneath them; seas the colours of jewels, and fish that could fly. He spoke of cities in the ancient world that were old a thousand years ago, places with magical names like Isfahan, Trebizond, Damascus . . . Palm trees against the evening sky, the sound of camel bells in the night, and the smell of the wind off a desert as old as time itself. I envy you that . . .’
She saw the sudden change in Adrienne’s face and stopped. There was no need for words. Adrienne had seen none of those things, and she was sick with shame that she could not tell Hester so without admitting that her father had not asked her to go with him, not ever.
Hester was overwhelmed with a sense of pity that she could not express without making it worse. When someone was humiliated, pity added salt to the wound. Maybe it was not love for her father that had kept her at his side day and night during his illness, and that had driven her to connive at Hester’s captivity, but the need for him to love her! To mitigate some of the years of her devotion since her mother’s death, keeping her little more than a child still, with the devouring needs of such a man to fulfil. Please God, he had taken his physical needs somewhere else. From his words, Hester had formed the opinion that it had been so. Perhaps Adrienne knew little of that. She would surely have chosen to look the other way.
In her own way, Adrienne was a prisoner even more tightly bound than Hester had been. No one would come and free her, because no one else knew she was bound. The chains were invisible.
Hester must say something now. Perhaps the only merciful thing to do was to pretend she did not know. What could she say that was not hypocritical, and transparent? She must leave Adrienne some dignity.
‘I said that I came to see you about your father’s health.’ She picked her words a little desperately. ‘It was not entirely true. I came out of some concern for you. I can only guess what your ordeal can have been, watching him suffer and fearing the outcome. Everyone’s concern was vested in him. None of us thought of you.’
Adrienne smiled ruefully, but she did not interrupt.
‘Now that my own difficulty is past,’ Hester went on, ‘I have things a little more in proportion, and I wondered if anyone was caring for you. I’m happy to see that you look so well. The relief must be immense.’
Adrienne was staring at her as though she were struggling to believe what Hester was saying. After the trial, and Hester’s testimony, that was hardly surprising. It was time to be less evasive.
‘I understand what it is to fight with every weapon you have to save those you love, and who have loved you, and trusted you,’ Hester said quietly. ‘I would fight with everything I have for my family and think of the consequences later. I hope your father understands how much of yourself you have given so he had the chance to recover. He must wish above all to repay you somehow.’ As she said the words she knew they were false, not because she thought so ill of Radnor, but because the confirmation that she was right was in Adrienne’s eyes.
‘Thank you,’ Adrienne said so softly Hester read the words in the movement of her lips rather than heard the sound of them.
Hester stood up. She did not wish Radnor to catch her here.
‘It is time I left you to enjoy your beautiful garden. From what I have seen of it, it is a masterpiece. Thank you for receiving me.’
Adrienne seemed bereft of words for a moment or two, and then she put out her hand and grasped Hester’s so hard it was difficult for her not to wince.
‘It was my pleasure . . . Mrs Monk.’
Hester was seen out by the footman who had let her in. As she walked down the path past the roses she saw Scuff come through the taller bushes from the back and join her at the gate. He looked at her curiously, but did not ask her anything. Maybe he was not certain if he wanted to know what had transpired. On the other hand, he may have seen in her face that she did not wish to tell him anything, at least not yet, probably not at all.
Two days later Hester was at the breakfast table ready to give Monk a second cup of tea when Hooper came in through the back door. He had knocked, but so lightly that they saw his shadow as he stepped in rather than heard him.
Hester knew instantly that something was very badly wrong.
‘What is it?’ she asked, putting the teapot down as if it had suddenly become too heavy to hold.
