“Mother, it may have been something quite personal,” Oonagh protested.
Hester laughed aloud. “Oh no!” she answered them both. “It was not a love affair, or being jilted. I wished to do something more useful than sit at home sewing and painting, neither of which I do well, and I had heard of the terrible conditions from my younger brother, who served in the army there. I—I suppose it suited my nature.”
“That is what I imagined.” Mary nodded very slightly. “There are not many ambitions for women. Most of us sit at home and keep the lamps burning, literally and metaphorically.” She looked around at Oonagh. “Thank you, my dear. It was most thoughtful of you to have found a companion for me who has a sense of passion and adventure, and has had the courage to follow it. I am sure I shall enjoy my trip to London.”
“I hope so,” Oonagh said quietly. “I have no doubt Miss Latterly will look after you very well and prove interesting company. Now I think I had better have Nora show her your medicine case and how the dose is prepared.”
“If you really feel it is necessary….” Mary shrugged. “Thank you for coming, Miss Latterly. I look forward to seeing you at luncheon, and then at dinner of course, which will have to be early. I believe our train leaves at a quarter past nine, so we shall board it at least half an hour before that. We shall have to leave here at a quarter past eight. That usually is too early to dine in any comfort, but there is no help for it tonight.”
They excused themselves, and Oonagh took Hester to Mrs. Farraline’s dressing room and introduced her to the lady’s maid Nora, a thin, dark woman with a grave manner.
“How do you do, miss,” she said, regarding Hester politely,
and apparently without the slightest envy or resentment.
Oonagh left them, and for the next half hour Nora showed Hester the medicine case, which was as simple as Mary had indicated, merely a matter of a dozen small glass vials filled with liquid, one for each night and morning until she should return again. The dose was already prepared; there was no measuring to be done. All that was necessary was to pour it into a glass already provided and see that Mrs. Farraline did not accidentally spill it, or far more seriously, that she did not forget that she had taken it and repeat the dose. That, as Oonagh had pointed out, could be extremely serious, possibly even fatal.
“You are to keep the key.” Nora locked the case and passed the key, tied to a small red ribbon, to Hester. “Please put it around your neck, then it cannot be lost.”
“Of course.” Hester obeyed, and slipped the key inside her bodice. “An excellent idea.”
Hester was sitting sideways on the dressing room’s single chair; Nora stood next to the wardrobes. Mary’s cases were spread out where the maid had packed them. With the wealth of fabric in every single skirt, half a dozen dresses took up an enormous space. A lady who expected to change at least three times a day—from morning dress to something suitable to go out for luncheon, and then to afternoon dress, tea gown and dinner gown—could hardly travel with less than at least three large cases, if not more. Petticoats, chemises, corsetry, stockings and shoes would require one alone.
“You won’t need to tend to any clothes,” Nora said with proprietary pride. “I’ll take care of all of that. There’s a list written out of everything, and there’ll be someone at Miss Griselda’s to unpack. All you might have to do is dress Mrs. Farraline’s hair for her in the morning. Can you do that?”
“Yes, certainly.”
“Good. Then that’s all I can show you.” A slight frown shadowed her face.
“Is there something else?” Hester asked.
“No, no, there’s nothing.” Nora shook her head. “I just wish she wasn’t going. I don’t hold wi’ travel. There’s no need. I know Miss Griselda’s newly wed, and expecting her first child, and the poor soul worries something wretched, from all the letters she’s been sending. But that’s the way some folk are. She’ll be all right, like as not; and either way, there’s nothing the mistress can do.”
“Is Miss Griselda delicate?”
“Lord no, just took it into her head to worry herself. She was all right till she married that Mr. Murdoch with his airs and graces.” She bit her lip. “Oh, I shouldn’t’ve said that. I’m sure he’s a very nice man.”
“Yes, I expect so,” Hester said without belief.
Nora looked at her with a faint smile.
“I daresay you’d like a cup o’ tea,” she offered. “It’s near eleven. There’ll be something in the dining room, if you want.”
“Thank you. I think I will.”
The only person sitting at the long oak table was a small woman Hester judged to be in her twenties. She had very dark hair, thick and shining, and a dusky complexion full of the most attractive color, as if she had just come in from an invigorating walk. It was not in the least fashionable, not in London anyway, but Hester found it a pleasant change from the much admired pallor she was accustomed to. The woman’s features were neat, and at first seemed merely pretty, but on closer examination there was an intelligence and a determination which was far more individual. And perhaps she was not twenty, but in her early thirties.
“Good morning,” Hester said tentatively. “Mrs. Farraline?”
The woman looked up at her as if startled by her intrusion, then she smiled and her entire bearing changed.
“Yes. Who are you?” It was not a challenge but curiosity,
as if Hester’s appearance were miraculous, and a delightful surprise. “Please do sit down.”
“Hester Latterly. I am the nurse to accompany Mrs. Mary Farraline to London.”
“Oh—I see. Would you like some tea? Or do you prefer cocoa? And oatcakes, or shortbread?”
“Tea, if you please, and the shortbread looks excellent,” Hester accepted, taking a seat opposite.
The woman poured tea and passed it to Hester, then proffered the plate with the shortbread. “Mother-in-law has hers upstairs,” she went on. “And of course all the men have gone to work, and Eilish is not up yet. She never is at this hour.”
“Is she … poorly?” As soon as Hester spoke she knew she should not have. If a member of the household chose not to rise until nearly lunchtime, it was not her business to inquire the reason.
“Good gracious no! Oh dear, I did not introduce myself. How remiss of me. I am Deirdra Farraline—Alastair’s wife.” She looked inquiringly at Hester to see if her explanation meant anything, and saw from her face that she already knew who he was. “Then there is Oonagh,” she continued. “Mrs. McIvor, who wrote to you, and then Kenneth, and Eilish—who is Mrs. Fyffe, although I never think of her like that, I don’t know why—and lastly Griselda, who now lives in London.”
“I see. Thank you.”
Hester sipped her tea and bit into the shortbread. It tasted even better than it looked, rich and crumbly, melting on the tongue.
“Don’t worry about Eilish,” Deirdra went on conversationally. “She never gets up at a decent hour, but she’s perfectly well. One has only to look at her to see that. A charming creature, and the loveliest woman in Edinburgh, I shouldn’t wonder—but also the laziest. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m very fond of her,” she added quickly. “But not to deny her faults.”
Hester smiled. “If we cared only for perfection, we should be very lonely.”
“I quite agree. Have you been to Edinburgh before?”
“No. No, I have never even been to Scotland.”
“Ah! Have you always lived in London?”
“No, I spent some time in the Crimea.”
“Good gracious!” Deirdra’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh. Oh, of course. The war. Yes, Oonagh said something about getting one of Miss Nightingale’s nurses for Mother-in-law. I can’t see why. She only wants a little dose of medicine, hardly an army nurse! Did you sail out there? It must have taken ages.” She screwed up her face earnestly and took another piece of shortbread. “If only man could fly. Then one would not have to go ’round Africa at all, one could simply go straight across Europe and Asia.”
“One doesn’t have to go ’round Africa to the Crimea,” Hester pointed out gently. “It is on the Black Sea. One goes through the Mediterranean and up the Bosphorus.”
Deirdra waved away the irrelevance with a small, strong hand. “But one has to go ’round Africa to get to India, or China. It is the same principle.”
Hester could think of no suitable reply, and returned to her tea.
“Don’t you find this terribly … tame … after the Crimea?” Deirdra asked curiously.
Hester might have assumed that the remark was idle conversation, had she not seen the intensity in Deirdra’s face and the obvious intelligence in her eyes. She wondered how to answer her. The chores of nursing were frequently tedious, although patients seldom were. Certainly the danger and the challenge of the Crimea were gone, as was the comradeship. But then the hunger, the cold, the fear and the terrible rage and pity were gone also. In its place had been the emotional tumult of working with Monk. She had met William Monk when he had been a police inspector investigating the Grey case, and then, through Callandra, she had assisted him with the Moidore case so shortly afterwards.
But he had stormed out of the police force and been consequently forced to practice as a private agent of inquiry. She had again found herself calling for his help for Edith Sobel when General Carlyon had been murdered. And she had been the ideal person to take a position in the hospital when Nurse Barrymore’s body had been found.
But the relationship with Monk was far too complicated to try to explain, and certainly not something likely to recommend her to a highly respectable family like the Farralines as a suitable companion for their mother.
Deirdra was still waiting, her eyes on Hester’s face.
“Sometimes,” she admitted, “I am delighted to miss the conditions, but I miss the companionship also, and that is hard.”
“And the challenge?” Deirdra pressed, leaning forward over the table. “Is it not a wonderful thing to try to accomplish something immensely difficult?”
“Not when you have no chance of success, and the pain of failure is other people’s suffering.”
Deirdra’s face fell. “No, of course not. I’m sorry, that was heartless of me. I did not mean it quite as it sounded. I was thinking of the challenge to the mind, to the inventiveness, to one’s own aspirations—I …” She stopped as the door opened and Oonagh came in. Oonagh glanced from one to the other of them, then her face softened in a smile.
“I hope you are comfortable, Miss Latterly, and being well looked after?”
“Oh yes, indeed, thank you,” Hester answered.
“I have been asking Miss Latterly about her experiences, or at least some of them,” Deirdra said enthusiastically. “It sounds most stimulating.”
Oonagh sat down and helped herself to tea. She looked across at Hester doubtfully.
“I imagine there are times when you must find England very restricting after the freedom of the Crimea?”
It was a curious remark, one that betrayed a far more intelligent
consideration than was usual. It was no idle piece of conversation made merely for something to say.
Hester did not reply immediately, and Oonagh sought to explain herself. “I mean the weight of responsibility you must have had there, if what I have read is anywhere near the truth. You must have seen a great deal of suffering, much of it quite avoidable, had more sense been exercised. And I imagine you did not always have a senior officer to hand, either medical or military, every time some judgment had to be made.”
“No—no we didn’t,” Hester agreed quickly, startled by Oonagh’s perception. In fact, now that she sat here in this quiet dining room with its polished table and handsome carved sideboard, she realized that the trust and responsibility, and the power to act for herself, were two of the aspects of the Crimea that she missed the most profoundly. Now so many of her decisions were trivial.
It must be even more so for a woman like Oonagh McIvor, whose responsibilities were largely domestic. What should Cook serve for dinner? How should she resolve the squabble between the kitchen maid and the laundry maid? Should she invite so-and-so to dine this week with the Smiths—or next week with the Joneses? Should she wear green on Sunday, or blue? Looking at the intelligence and the resolve in Oonagh’s features, Hester saw that she was not a woman to waste her energy on such things, which mattered not in the slightest, even today, never mind in the course of one’s life. Was it envy she could hear in the curious timbre of Oonagh’s voice?
“You have a remarkable understanding,” she replied aloud, meeting Oonagh’s steady gaze. “I don’t think I had even phrased it to myself so well. I confess that at times I have found myself almost suffocated by the necessity of obedience, when I had been used to action, simply because there was no one else to turn to and the urgency of the situation did not allow us to delay.”
Deirdra was watching her closely, her face quickened with interest, her tea forgotten.
Oonagh smiled as if the answer in some way pleased her.
“You must have seen much waste, and a fearful amount of pain,” she observed. “Of course there will always be deaths, when one is occupied with medicine, but there can be nothing like the battlefield in a hospital. That aspect of it must be a relief to you. Does one get hardened to seeing so much death?”
Hester considered for several moments before replying. This was not a person who deserved, or would accept, a trite or insincere response.
“It is not that you become hardened,” she said thoughtfully. “But you learn to govern your emotions, and then to ignore them. If you allowed yourself to dwell on it you would become so wretched you would cease to be any use to those who were still living. And while it is very natural to pity, it is also quite pointless in a nurse, where there is so much that is practical to do. Tears don’t remove bullets or splint broken limbs.”
A look of calm filled Oonagh’s eyes, as though some irritating question had been resolved. She rose from the chair, ignoring the rest of her tea, and smoothed her skirts. “I am sure you are exactly the person to accompany Mother to London. She will find you most stimulating, and I have every confidence you will be ideal to care for her. Thank you for being so frank with me, Miss Latterly. You have set my mind at rest entirely.” She looked at a fob watch hanging from a ribbon at her shoulder. “It is still some time until luncheon. Perhaps you would like to spend it in the library? It is quite warm in there, and you will not be disturbed, should you wish to read.” She glanced at Deirdra.