William Monk 08 - The Silent Cry

that makes any difference.”
    “No, neither do I,” Hester answered quickly. “He may recover, you know.”
    Sylvestra’s face was wide-eyed, tense in the soft light from the gas lamps and the fire.
    “Please do not be kind to me, Miss Latterly. I think perhaps I am ready to hear the truth.” A very faint smile touched her face and was gone. “I received a letter from Amalia this morning. She writes about such conditions in India it makes me feel very feeble to be sitting here before the fire with everything a person could need for their physical comfort and safety,and still to imagine I have something to complain about. You must have known many soldiers, Miss Latterly?”
    “Yes …”
    “And their wives?”
    “Yes. I knew several.” She wondered why Sylvestra asked.
    “Amalia has told me something of the mutiny in India,” Sylvestra went on. “Of course, that was three years ago now, I know, but it seems as if things will be changed forever by it. More and more white women are being sent over there to keep their husbands company. Amalia says that it is to keep the soldiers apart from the native Indians, so they can never trust and be taken unaware like that again. Do you suppose she is right?”
    “I should think it very likely,” Hester replied candidly. She did not know a great deal about the circumstances of the Indian Mutiny. It had occurred too close to the end of the war in the Crimea, when she was deeply concerned with the tragic death of both her parents, with finding a means of supporting herself, and with accommodating to the dramatically different way of life afforded to her when she returned to England.
    Attempting to adapt to the life of a single woman rather past the best age for marriage, not possessed of the sort of family connections to make her sought after, nor the money to provide for herself or a handsome dowry, and unfortunately not of great natural beauty or winning ways, had made the task extremely difficult. She was also not of a docile disposition.
    She had read the fearful stories and heard accounts of starvation and massacre, but she had not known anyone who had been affected personally.
    “It is hard to imagine such atrocity,” Sylvestra said thoughtfully. “I am beginning to realize how very little I know. It is disturbing …” She hesitated, her hands idle, the linen held up but quite still. “And yet there is something not unlike exhilaration in it also. Amalia wrote to me of the most extraordinary incident.” She shook her head, her face troubled, eyes far away. “It seems that the siege of Cawnpore was particularly brutal. The women and children were starved for three weeks, then the survivors were taken to the river and placed upon boats, where the native soldiers—sepoys, I believe they are called—fell upon them. Those hundred and twenty-five or so who still survived even that were taken to a building known as the Bibighar, and after a further eighteen days were slaughtered—by butchers brought in from the bazaar for the purpose.”
    Hester did not interrupt.
    “It seems when the Highland Regiment relieved Cawnpore, they found the hacked-up bodies and exacted a fearful revenge, killing every one of the sepoys there. What I wanted to mention was the tale Amalia wrote me of one soldier’s wife, named Bridget Widdowson, who during the siege was sent to guard eleven mutineers, because at that time there were no men available. This she accomplished perfectly, marching up and down in front of them all day, terrifying them immobile, and it was only when she was finally relieved by a regular soldier that they all escaped. Is that not remarkable?”
    “Indeed it is,” Hester agreed wholeheartedly. She saw the wonder and the amazed admiration in Sylvestra’s eyes. There was something stirring in her which was going to find the loneliness of this house without her husband, the restrictions of society widowhood and her enforced idleness as a kind of imprisonment. Rhys’s dependency would only add to it, in time. “But the heat and the endemic disease are things I should find very trying,” she said to counter it.
    “Would you?” It was a genuine question, not an idle remark. “Why did you go out to the Crimea, Miss Latterly?”
    Hester was startled.
    “Oh, forgive me,” Sylvestra apologized immediately. “That was an intrusive question. You may have had all manner of private reasons which are none of my concern. I do beg your pardon.”
    Hester