The Silent Cry (7 page)

His fingers clung so hard she felt as though she too would be bruised when at last he let go.

Half an hour passed in silence, then finally he began to relax a little.

The sweat was running off his brow and standing in beads on his lip, but his shoulders lay easy on the pillow and his fingers unclenched.

She was able to slip her hand out and move away to wring the cloth again and bathe his face.

He smiled at her. It was just a small curving of the lips, a softening of his eyes, but it was real.

She smiled back, and felt a tightness in her throat. It was a glimpse of the man he must have been before this terrible thing had happened to him.

Rhys did not knock the bell for her during the night; nevertheless she woke twice of her own accord and went in to see how he was. The first occasion she found him sleeping fitfully. She waited a few moments, then crept out again without disturbing him.

The second time he was awake, and he heard her the moment she pushed the door. He was lying staring towards her. She had not brought a candle, using only the light from the embers of the fire. The room was colder. His eyes looked hollow in the shadows.

She smiled at him.

"I think it's time I stoked the fire again," she said quietly. "It's nearly out.”

He nodded very slightly, and then watched her as she crossed the room and took away the guard, and bent to riddle the dead ash through the basket and very gently pile more small pieces of coal on what was left, then wait until it caught in a fragile flame.

"It's coming," she said for no reason other than a sense of communication. She looked around and saw him still watching her. "Are you cold?" she asked.

He nodded, but it was half-hearted, his expression rueful. She gathered he was only a very little chilly.

She waited until the flames were stronger, then put on more coals, piling them high enough to last until morning.

She went back to the bed and looked at him more closely, trying to read in his expression what he wanted or needed. He did not seem in physical pain any more than before, but there was an urgency in his eyes, a tension around his mouth. Did he want her to stay or to go? If she asked him, would it be too clumsy, too direct? She must be delicate. He had been hurt so badly. What had happened to him? What had he seen?

"Would you like a little milk and arrowroot?" she suggested.

He nodded immediately.

"I'll be back in a few minutes," she promised.

She returned nearly a quarter of an hour later. It was further to the kitchen than she had remembered, and it had taken longer to bring the cooking range to a reasonable heat. But the ingredients were fresh and she had a handsome blue and white porcelain mug filled with steaming milk, just the right temperature to drink, and the arrowroot in it would be soothing. She propped the pillows behind him and held it to his lips. He drank it with a smile, his eyes steady on hers.

When he was finished she was not sure whether he wanted her to stay or not, to speak or remain silent. What should she say? Usually she would have asked a patient about themselves, led them to talk to her.

But anything with Rhys would be utterly one-sided. She could only guess from his expression whether her words interested or bored, encouraged or caused further pain. She had hardly seen Sylvestra to learn any more about him.

In the end she said nothing.

She took the empty cup from him. "Are you ready to sleep?" she asked.

He shook his head slowly but decisively. He wanted her to stay.

"You have some very interesting books." She glanced towards the shelf.

"Do you like to be read to?”

He thought for a moment, then nodded. She should choose something far removed from his present life, and it must be something without violence. Nothing must remind him of his own experience. And yet it must not be tedious either.

She went over to the shelf and tried to make out the titles in the firelight, which was now considerable. "How about a history of Byzantium?" she suggested.

He nodded again, and she returned with it in her hand. "I'll have to light the gas.”

He agreed, and for three-quarters of an hour she read quietly to him about the colourful and devious history of that great centre of Empire, its customs and its people, its intrigues and struggles for power. He fell asleep reluctantly, and she closed the book, marking the page with a taper from the box by the fire, put out the light again, and tip-toed back to her room with a feeling of something close to elation.

There was not a great deal she could do for him beyond making sure he was as comfortable as possible, that his bedroom was clean and that the bandages on his more minor wounds were changed as often as was consistent with healing. Eating was difficult for him and seemed to cause him immediate distress. Obviously his internal injuries affected his ability to accept and digest food. It was distressing, and yet she knew that if he did not take nourishment he would waste away, his organs would cease to function and he would damage them irreparably.

Fluid was vital.

She brought him milk and arrowroot again, beef tea, and a little dry, very thin toast, and then half an hour later, more egg custard.

It was not without pain, but he did retain it.

Dr. Wade came in the late morning. He looked anxious, his face pinched, his eyes shadowed. He himself was limping and in some pain from a fall from his horse over the previous weekend. He came upstairs almost immediately, meeting Hester on the landing.

"How is he, Miss Latterly? I fear it is a wretched job I've given you.

I'm truly sorry.”

"Please don't apologise, Dr. Wade," she responded sincerely. "I don't wish to have only the easy cases…”

His face softened. "I'm very grateful for that! I had heard well of you, it seems with good reason. Nevertheless, it must be disturbing when there is so little you can do, anyone can do, to help." He frowned and his voice dropped. He stared at the floor. "I've known the family for years, Miss Latterly, ever since I came out of the Navy…”

"The Navy?" She was caught by surprise. It was something she had not even imagined. "I'm sorry… I have no right to…”

He smiled suddenly, illuminating his features and changing his appearance entirely. "I was a naval surgeon twenty years ago. Some of the men I tended had served with Nelson." His eyes met hers, bright with memory, seeing in his mind another age, another world. "One old sailor, whose leg I amputated after a canon had broken loose and pinned him to the bulkhead, had served in the victory at Trafalgar." His voice was thick with concentration. "I don't suppose there is another woman I know to whom I could say that, and she would have some idea of what it means. But you have seen battle, you have watched the courage amid horror, the heart and the strength, the endurance through pain and in the face of death. I think we share something that the people around us can never know. I am extremely grateful that you are nursing poor Rhys, and will be here to support Sylvestra through what can only be a dreadful ordeal for her.”

He did not say so in words, but she saw in his eyes that he was preparing her for the fact that Rhys might not recover. She steeled herself.

"I shall do everything I can," she promised, meeting his gaze steadily.

"I'm sure you will." He nodded. "I have no doubt of it whatever. Now… I will see him. Alone. I am sure you understand. He is a proud man… young… sensitive. I have wounds to tend, dressings which must be changed.”

"Of course. If I can be of assistance, just ring the bell.”

"Thank you, thank you, Miss Latterly.”

In the afternoon Hester left Rhys to rest, and spent a little time with Sylvestra in the withdrawing room. It was crowded with furniture, as was the rest of the house, but warm and surprisingly comfortable, to the body if not to the eye.

The house was very quiet. She could hear only the flames in the fireplace and the driving of rain against the window. There were no sounds of servants' feet across the hallway, or whispers or laughter as there were in most houses. Tragedy seemed to have settled over it with peculiar loneliness.

Sylvestra asked after Rhys, but it was merely to make conversation. She had been in to see him twice during the day, the second time she had stayed for a painful half-hour, trying to think of something to say to him, recalling happiness in the distant past, when he was still a child, and half promising that such peace and joy would come again. She had not mentioned Leighton Duff. Perhaps that was natural. The shock and wound of his loss was far too new, and she certainly would not wish to remind Rhys of it.

In the silences between them, Hester looked around the room for something to prompt a conversation. Again she was unsure whether speech was wanted or not. She was conscious of a painful isolation in the woman who sat a few feet away from her, a polite smile on her face, her eyes distant. Hester did not know if it was loneliness, or simply a private dignity of grief.

She saw among the group photographs one of a young woman with dark eyes and level brows and a nose too strong to be pretty, but her mouth was beautiful. She bore a marked resemblance to Rhys, and the gown she was wearing, the top half of which was very clear in the picture, was of very modern style, not more than a year or two old.

"What an interesting face," she remarked, hoping it was not touching on another tragedy.

Sylvestra smiled and there was pride in it.

"That is my daughter, Amalia.”

Hester wondered where she was, and how soon she could be here to help and support her mother. Surely no family duty could be more important?

The answer came immediately, again with a lift of pride and shadow of puzzlement.

"She is in India. Both my daughters are there. Constance is married to a captain in the army. She had the most terrible time during the Mutiny three years ago. She writes often, telling us about life there." She looked not at Hester, but into the dancing flames of the fire. "She says things can never be the same again. She used to love it, even when it was most boring for many of the wives. During the heat of the summer the women would all go up to the hill stations, you know?" It was a rhetorical question. She did not expect Hester to have any knowledge of such things. She had forgotten she had been an army nurse, or perhaps she did not understand what it really meant. It was another world from hers.

"They can never trust now as they used to. It has all changed," she went on. "The violence was unimaginable, the torture, the massacres.”

She shook her head. "But of course they can't come home. It is their duty to remain." She said it without bitterness or the slightest resentment. Duty was a strength and a reason for life, as well as its most rigid boundary.

"I understand," Hester said quickly. She did. Her mind flew back to officers she had known in the Crimea, men, clever ones and foolish ones, to whom duty was as simple as a flame. At no matter what cost, personal or public, even when it was painful or ridiculous, they would never think of doing other than what was expected of them. At times she could have shouted at them, or even lashed out at them physically, through sheer frustration at their rigidity, at the sometimes unnecessary and terrible sacrifices. But she never ceased to admire it in them, whether at its noblest, or its most futile or both together.

Sylvestra must have caught something in her voice, a depth of answering emotion. She turned to look at her and for the first time smiled.

"Amalia is in India too, but her husband is in the Colonial Service, and she takes a great interest in the native peoples." There was pride in her face, and amazement for a way of life she could hardly imagine.

"She has friends among the women. Sometimes I worry that she is very rash. I fear she intrudes where Westerners are not wanted, thinking she will alter things for the good, when in truth she may only do damage. I have written advising her, but she was never good at accepting counsel. Hugo is a nice young man, but too busy with his own tasks to pay sufficient attention to Amalia, I think.”

Hester's imagination pictured a rather stuffy man shuffling papers on a desk, while the spirited, more adventurous Amalia explored forbidden territories.

"I'm sorry they are not closer, to be with you at this time," she said gently. She knew it would be months before any letters from Sylvestra with the news of her father's death could circle round the Cape of Good Hope and reach India, and the answers return to England. No wonder Sylvestra was so terribly alone.

Mourning was always a time for family closeness. Outsiders, no matter how excellent their friendship, felt intrusive, and did not know what to say.

"Yes…" Sylvestra agreed, almost as if speaking to herself. "I would dearly like their company, especially Amalia. She is always so… positive." She shivered a little, in spite of the warmth of the room, the heavy curtains drawn across the windows against the rain and the dark, the empty tea tray with the remains of crumpets and butter. "I don't know what to expect… the police again, I suppose. More questions, for which I have no answers.”

Hester knew, but it was kinder not to reply. Answers would be found, ugly things uncovered, even if only because they were private, and perhaps foolish or shabby. They would not necessarily include finding the man who had murdered Leighton Duff.

Again Rhys ate only beef tea and a little dry toast. Hester read to him for a while, and he fell asleep early. Hester herself did not put out her light until after midnight, and awoke again in the dark with a ripple of horror going over her like an icy draught. The bell had not fallen, yet she rose immediately and went through to Rhys's room.

The fire was still burning well and the flames cast plenty of light.

Rhys was half sitting against the pillows, his eyes wide open and filled with blind, unspeakable terror. His face was drenched in sweat.

His lips were stretched back over his teeth. His throat convulsed over and over again, and he seemed unable to draw breath except in gasps between each soundless scream. His splinted hands were held up near his face to ward off the terror his mind saw.