Wiliam Monk 01 - The Face of a Stranger

will. Hester had never known anyone she had liked better, and the mere sight of her was enough to lift the spirits and fill the heart with confidence.
    "Perhaps not." She wriggled her toes in the now cool water. The sensation was delicious. "But a great deal has happened: my circumstances have altered."
    "So you wrote to me. I am extremely sorry about your parents—please know that I feel for you deeply."
    Hester did not want to talk of it; the pain was still very sharp. Imogen had written and told her of her father's death, although not a great deal of the circumstances, except that he had been shot in what might have been an accident with a pair of dueling pistols he kept, or that he might have surprised an intruder, although since it had happened in the late afternoon it was unlikely, and the police had implied but not insisted that suicide was probable. In consideration to the family, the verdict had been left open. Suicide was not only a crime against the law but a sin against the Church which would exclude him from being buried in hallowed ground and be a burden of shame the family would carry indefinitely.
    Nothing appeared to have been taken, and no robber was ever apprehended. The police did not pursue the case.
    Within a week another letter had arrived, actually posted two weeks later, to say that her mother had died also. No one had said that it was of heartbreak, but such words were not needed.
    "Thank you," Hester acknowledged with a small smile.
    Callandra looked at her for a moment, then was sensitive enough to see the hurt in her and understand that probing would only injure further, discussion was no longer any part of the healing. Instead she changed the subject to the practical.
    "What are you considering doing now? For heaven's sake don't rush into a marriage!"
    Hester was a trifle surprised at such unorthodox advice, but she replied with self-deprecatory frankness.
    "I have no opportunity to do such a thing. I am nearly thirty, of an uncompromising disposition, too tall, and have no money and no connections. Any man wishing to marry me would be highly suspect as to his motives or his judgment."
    "The world is not short of men with either shortcoming," Callandra replied with an answering smile. "As you yourself have frequently written me. The army at least abounds with men whose motives you suspect and whose judgment you abhor."
    Hester pulled a face. "ToucM," she conceded. "But all the same they have enough wits where their personal interest is concerned." Her memory flickered briefly to an army surgeon in the hospital. She saw again his weary face, his sudden smile, and the beauty of his hands as he worked. One dreadful morning during the siege she had accompanied him to the redan. She could smell the gunpowder and the corpses and feel the bitter cold again as if it were only a moment ago. The closeness had been so intense it had made up for everything else—and then the sick feeling in her stomach when he had spoken for the first time of his wife. She should have known—she should have thought of it—but she had not.
    "I should have to be either beautiful or unusually helpless, or preferably both, in order to have them flocking to my door. And as you know, I am neither.''
    Callandra looked at her closely. "Do I detect a note of self-pity, Hester?"
    Hester felt the color hot up her cheeks, betraying her so no answer was necessary.
    "You will have to learn to conquer that," Callandra observed, settling herself a little deeper in the chair. Her voice was quite gentle; there was no criticism in it, simply a statement of fact. "Too many women waste their lives grieving because they do not have something other people tell them they should want. Nearly all married women will
    tell you it is a blessed state, and you are to be pitied for not being in it. That is arrant nonsense. Whether you are happy or not depends to some degree upon outward circumstances, but mostly it depends how you choose to look at things yourself, whether you measure what you have or what you have not."
    Hester frowned, uncertain as to how much she understood, or believed, what Callandra was saying.
    Callandra was a trifle impatient. She jerked forward, frowning. "My dear girl, do you really imagine every woman with a smile on her face is really happy? No person of a healthy mentality desires to be pitied, and the simplest way to avoid it is to keep your troubles to yourself and wear a complacent expression. Most of the world