William Monk 17 - Acceptable Loss

said with a wide smile. “Do you really have to do that yourself?” He eyed the floor and the bucket.
    “Actually, it’s quite satisfying,” she told him. “Especially if you’re in a temper. You can attack it, and then see the difference you have made.”
    “Next time I am in a temper, perhaps I’ll try it,” he promised with a smile. “You were an army nurse, weren’t you?” he observed. “They should have set you at the enemy. You’d have frightened the wits out of them.” He said it good-naturedly, as if in approval. “Would you like a cup of tea? I should have brought some cake.”
    “Bread and jam?” she offered. She could enjoy a few minutes’ break and the light, superficial conversation with him. He reminded her of the young cavalry officers she had known in the Crimea: charming, funny, seemingly careless on the surface, and yet underneath it trying desperately not to think of tomorrow, or yesterday, and the friends they had lost, and would yet lose. However, as far as she knew, Rupert had no war to fight, no battle worth winning or losing.
    “What kind of jam?” he asked, as if it mattered.
    “Black currant,” she replied. “Or possibly raspberry.”
    “Right.” To her surprise he bent and picked up the bucket, carrying it away from himself a little so it did not soil his perfect trousers or splash his boots.
    She was startled. She had never before seen him even acknowledge the necessity, never mind stoop to so lowly a task. She wonderedwhat had made him think of it today. Certainly not any vulnerability in her. It had made no difference before.
    He put the pail down at the scullery door. Emptying it could wait for someone else.
    In the kitchen Hester pushed the kettle over onto the cooktop and started to cut bread. She offered to toast it, and then passed the fork over to him to hold in front of the open door of the stove.
    They spoke easily of the clinic and some of the cases that had come in. Rupert had a quick compassion for the street women’s pain, in spite of being one of those very willing to use their services.
    With tea, toast, and jam on the table, conversation moved to other subjects with which there was no tension, no glaring contrasts: social gossip, places they had visited, exhibitions of art. He was interested in everything, and he listened as graciously as he spoke. Sometimes she forgot the great kitchen around her, the pots and pans, the stove, and in the next room the copper for boiling linen, and the laundry tubs, the scullery sinks, the racks of vegetables. She could have been at home as a young woman, fifteen years ago, before the war, before experience, passion, grief, or real happiness. There had been a kind of innocence to her life then; everything had been possible. Her parents had still been alive, and also her younger brother, who had been killed in the Crimea. The memories were both sweet and painful.
    Deliberately she steered the subject back to the clinic. “We’re very grateful for your gift. I had asked Lady Rathbone to see if she could raise some more money, but it is always difficult. We keep on asking, because there is so much needed all the time, but people do get tired of us.” She smiled a trifle ruefully.
    “Lady Rathbone. Is she the wife of Sir Oliver?” he asked with apparent interest, although it might merely have been the feigning required by good manners.
    “Yes. Do you know them?”
    “Only by repute.” The idea seemed to amuse him. “Our paths don’t cross, except perhaps at the theater, and I dare say he goes for reasons of business, and she, to be seen. I go because I enjoy it.”
    “Isn’t that why you do most things?” she replied, and then wished she had not. It was too perceptive, too sharp.
    He winced, but appeared unoffended. “You are about the only truly virtuous woman that I actually like,” he said, as if surprised at it himself. “You haven’t ever tried to redeem me, thank God.”
    “Good heavens!” She opened her eyes wide. “How remiss of me! Should I have, at least for appearances’ sake?”
    “If you told me you cared about appearances, I should not believe you,” he answered, trying to be serious, and failing. “Although for some, there is nothing else.” He was suddenly tense, muscles pulling in his neck. “Wasn’t it Sir Oliver who defended Jericho Phillips and got him off?”
    Hester felt a moment of chill, simply to be reminded of it. “Yes,” she said with as little expression as