William Monk 09 - A Breach of Promise

quietly.
    It was after eleven o’clock, but since she had promised, she made her way downstairs to see if Perdita was still up. Most probably she was not, but she must look.
    However, as soon as she opened the withdrawing room door Perdita sat up from the sofa where she had been curled half asleep. Her hair was tousled and she blinked even in the dim light of the one wall lamp still lit.
    “How is he?” she asked anxiously. “Is he all right?”
    Hester closed the door and walked over to the chair near Perdita and sat down. She looked at the younger woman’s frightened eyes and her soft cheek, marked now where she had lain against the crease in the cushions. She was about twenty-two, but in some ways no more than a child. She had been married at eighteen after a year’s betrothal to a man who was in every way her ideal. She had seen him through the eyes of a girl who expected everything of marriage. It was not only what was required of her, it was her own dream, and Gabriel Sheldon was the perfect husband: handsome, brave, charming, well-bred and with a promising career. And for all that it had been a socially suitable marriage, they had also been in love.
    Now her whole world was in ruins, for no reason she could comprehend, and she was overwhelmed by it.
    “He is settled for the night,” Hester answered. “I think hewill sleep well.” She had no idea whether he would or not, but there was no purpose in saying that to Perdita.
    Perdita frowned. “Are you sure? You were in there a long time….”
    “Oh … I suppose I was. We were just talking. There was nothing wrong, I promise you.”
    Perdita looked unhappy, twisting her hands together in her lap.
    “I never know what to say to him,” she murmured. “I can’t keep asking how he is feeling. He only says he’s all right. And I know he isn’t, but there’s nothing I can do.” She glanced up suddenly. She had very blue eyes, but in this somber light they seemed almost black. “What do you find to say, Miss Latterly?”
    Hester hesitated. She should not answer with the truth. He had not said so, but what Gabriel had told her was implicitly a confidence. It was something neither of them could share with anyone else. As close as she had been to William Monk at times—all the causes they had fought for together, the tragedies they had seen—she would not share her experiences of the battlefield or the siege or the hospital at Scutari with him. But Gabriel understood.
    She must find an answer which did not make Perdita feel even more helpless and excluded.
    “It is easier for me,” she began, watching Perdita’s face. “We are not emotionally concerned with each other. There cannot be the same … the same sort of hurt. We were discussing places we had been to, what it was like, the things that are different, and those that are the same.”
    “Oh …”
    Had Perdita disbelieved her? It was impossible to tell from her downcast expression and the hesitation in her voice. Her loneliness was so sharp it was almost like a cry.
    “I told him a few of my experiences in the Crimea,” Hester went on, impelled to add to what she had said.
    “The Crimea?” Perdita did not immediately understand. Then realization flooded her face. “You were in the Crimea?”
    Hester perceived instantly that she had made a mistake. Perdita had heard and read enough to know that that conflict, with its horror and its losses, had had so much in common with the Mutiny in India that Hester and Gabriel must share feelings and memories she could never know. It was clear in her eyes that she was uncertain how she felt about it. Part of her was relieved, grateful that there was someone he could turn to; another part, easily as great, felt frightened and excluded because it was not her.
    “Yes.” It would be absurd to deny it. “That is where I learned my nursing abilities. I imagine that is why your brother-in-law chose me to come here.”
    “So you could talk to Gabriel?”
    “Rather more so I would have some knowledge of what his needs would be,” Hester answered.
    Perdita stared at the embers of the fire. “He doesn’t think I can learn to do that. He doesn’t think I will be any use or comfort at all.”
    What was there to say that was even remotely honest and yet not so hurtful it was destructive?
    “Sometimes there isn’t anything you can do,” Hester began, thinking what more to say, feeling for words. “At times he may wish to speak of the Mutiny and