William Monk 09 - A Breach of Promise

women whose lives were familiar to him, his own female relatives, the women he had courted in the past, or been drawn to, the wives of his friends and acquaintances. It made her somehow in another way unknown, even unknowable. It was not entirely a comfortable emotion.
    The door opened and a large, ebullient man came in. He was dressed in a Norfolk tweed jacket of an indeterminate brown, and brownish gray trousers. His stance, his expression, everything about him was full of energy.
    “Athol Sheldon!” he announced, holding out his hand. “I understand you’ve come to see Miss Latterly? Excellent woman. Sure she’ll care extremely well for my brother. Hideous experience, losing an arm. Don’t really know what to say to help.” For a moment he looked confused. Then by force of will and belief he assumed an air of confidence again. “Best a day at a time, what? Courage! Don’t meet tomorrow’s problems before they’re here. Too easy to get morbid. Good thing to have a nurse, I think. Family’s too close, at times.” He stood in the middle of the room, seeming to fill it with his presence. “Do you know Miss Latterly well?”
    “Yes,” Rathbone said without hesitation. “We have been friends for some years.” Actually it was not as long as itseemed, if one counted the actual span of time rather than the hectic events which had crowded it. There were many other people he had known far longer but with whom he had shared little of depth or meaning. Time was a peculiarly elastic measurement. It was an empty space, given meaning only by what it contained, and afterwards distorted in memory.
    “Ah … good.” Athol obviously wanted to say something else, but could find no satisfactory words. “Remarkable thing for a woman, what? Going out to the Crimea.”
    “Yes,” Rathbone agreed, waiting for Athol to add whatever it was he really wanted to say.
    “Don’t suppose it’s easy to settle down when you come back,” Athol continued, glancing at Rathbone curiously. He had very round, very direct eyes. “Not sure it’s entirely a good thing.”
    Rathbone knew exactly what he meant, and thought so too. It had forced Hester to see and hear horror that no person should have to know, to experience violence and deprivation, and to find within herself not only strength but intelligence, skill and courage she might not have conceived, let alone exercised, at home in England. She had proved herself the equal of many men whose authority she would never have questioned in normal circumstances. Sometimes she had even shown herself superior, when the crisis had been great enough. It upset the natural, accepted order of things. One could not unlearn knowledge so gained. And she could not and would not pretend.
    Rathbone agreed, but he found himself resenting the fact that Athol Sheldon should remark it. Instantly he was defensive.
    “Not entirely painless, certainly; but if you consider the work of someone like Miss Nightingale, you cannot but be enormously grateful for the difference she will make to medical care. We may never count the millions of lives her methods will save, not to mention the sheer suffering relieved.”
    “Yes …” Athol nodded, but there was no easing of the expression in his face. He pushed his hands into his pocketsand then took them out again. “Of course. Admirable. But it changes one.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “Changes one,” Athol repeated, moving restlessly around the room before turning to face Rathbone. “A woman is designed by God and by nature to create a gentle and safe place, a place of inner peace and a certain innocence, if you like, for those who are obliged to face horror or evil.” He frowned, looking intensely at Rathbone. “It changes a person, you know, the sight of real evil. We should protect women from it … so they in turn can protect us from ourselves.” He spread his large hands wide. “So they can renew us, revive our spirits, and keep a haven worth striving for, worth … fighting or dying in order to—to protect!”
    “Has Miss Latterly done something that disturbs you, Mr. Sheldon?” Rathbone asked anxiously.
    “Well …” Athol bit his lip. “You see, Sir Oliver, my brother Gabriel has seen some appalling sights in India, quite shocking.” He frowned and lowered his voice confidentially. “Unfortunately he cannot put them from his mind. He has spoken of them to Miss Latterly, and she is of the opinion that my sister-in-law, Mrs.