William Monk 08 - The Silent Cry

never understand. We see what appears to be the same events, and yet when we speak about them afterwards they are quite different, as if we were not discussing the same thing at all. I used to wonder if it was memory, now I know it is quite different perception in the first place. I suppose that is part of growing up.” She smiled very slightly at her own foolishness. “You realize that people do not necessarily feel or think as you do yourself. Some things cannot be communicated.”
    “Can’t they?” Sylvestra challenged. “Surely that is what speech is for?”
    “Words are only labels,” Fidelis replied, taking the thoughts Hester felt would be too bold of her to express them herself. “A way of describing an idea. If you do not know what the idea is, then the label does not tell you.”
    Sylvestra was plainly puzzled.
    “I remember Joel trying to explain some Greek or Arabic ideas to me,” Fidelis attempted to clarify. “I did not understand, because we do not have such a concept in our culture.” She smiled ruefully. “In the end all he could do was use their word for it. It did not help in the slightest. I still had no idea what it was.” She looked at Hester. “Can you tell me what it is like to watch a young soldier die of cholera in Scutari, or see the wagonloads of mangled bodies come in from Sebastopol, or Balaclava, some of them dying of hunger and cold? I mean, can you tell me so that I will feel what you felt?”
    “No.” The bare word was enough. Hester looked at this woman with the extraordinary face far more closely than before. At first she had seemed simply another well-bred wife of a successful man, come to offer her sympathy to a friend bereaved. In what had begun as an afternoon’s trivial conversation, she had touched on one of the mysteries of loneliness and misunderstanding that underlay so many incomplete relationships. Hester saw in Sylvestra’s eyes the sudden flare of her own incomprehension. Perhaps the chasm between Rhys and herself was more than his loss of speech? Maybe words would not have conveyed what had really happened to him anyway?
    And what of Leighton Duff? How well had Sylvestra known him? Hester could see that thought reflected in his widow’s dark eyes even now.
    Fidelis was watching Sylvestra too, her lopsided face touched with concern. How much had she been told, or had she guessed, of that night? Had she any idea of why Leighton Duff had gone to St. Giles?
    “No,” Hester broke the silence. “I think there must always be experiences we can share only imperfectly.”
    Fidelis smiled briefly, the shadow again behind her eyes.“The wisest thing, my dear, is to accept a certain blindness and not either to blame yourself or to blame others too much. You must succeed by your own terms, not anyone else’s.”
    It was a curious remark, and Hester had the fleeting impression that it was made with some deeper meaning which Sylvestra would understand. She was not sure if it referred to Rhys or to Leighton Duff, or simply to some generality of their lives which was relevant to this new and consuming misery. Whatever it was, Fidelis Kynaston wished Sylvestra to believe she understood it.
    Their tea was cold and the tiny sandwiches eaten when Arthur Kynaston returned, looking slightly flushed but far less tense than when he had gone up.
    “How is he?” his mother asked before Sylvestra could speak.
    “He seems in good spirits,” he replied hastily. He was too young, too clear-faced, to lie well. He had obviously been profoundly shaken but was trying to conceal it from Sylvestra. “I’m sure when his cuts and bruises have healed, he’ll feel a different man. He was really quite interested in Belzoni. I promised to bring him some drawings—if that’s all right?”
    “Of course,” Sylvestra said quickly. “Yes … yes, please do.” She seemed relieved. At last something was returning to normal; it was a moment when things were back to the sanity, the wholeness, of the past.
    Fidelis rose to her feet and put a hand on her son’s arm. “That would be most kind. Now I think we should allow Mrs. Duff a little time to herself.” She turned and bade Hester good-bye, then looked at Sylvestra. “If there is anything whatever I can do, my dear, you have only to let me know. If you wish to talk, I am always ready to listen—and then forget … selectively. I have an excellent ability to forget.”
    “There are so many things I would like to