the bell will ring to summon her if you need her. She will do everything she can to make you comfortable and help you to get better.”
He turned his head to regard Hester with only mild curiosity, and still what she could not help feeling was dislike.
“How do you do, Mr. Duff,” she said rather more coolly than she had originally intended. She had nursed very awkward patients before, but for all her realization, it was still disturbing to be disliked by someone for whom she had an instinctive pity and with whom she would spend the next weeks, or months, constantly—and in most intimate circumstances.
He blinked but stared back at her in silence. It was going to be a difficult beginning, whatever might follow.
Sylvestra looked faintly embarrassed. She turned from Rhys to Hester.
“Perhaps I had better show you your room?”
“Thank you,” Hester accepted. She would change into a plainer and more practical dress, and return alone to try to get to know Rhys Duff and learn what there was she could do to help him.
Her first evening in the Duff house was unfamiliar and oddly lonely. She had frequently been among people who were profoundly distressed by violence or bereavement, even by crime.She had lived with people under the pressure of investigation by strangers into the most private and vulnerable parts of their lives. She had known people whom dreadful circumstances had caused to be suspicious and frightened of each other. But she had never before nursed a patient who was conscious and yet unable to speak. There was a silence in the whole house which gave her a sense of isolation. Sylvestra herself was a quiet woman, not given to conversing except when she had some definite message to impart, not talking simply for companionship, as most women do.
The servants were muted, as if in the presence of the dead, not chattering or gossiping among themselves, as was habitual.
When Hester returned to Rhys’s room she found him lying on his back staring up at the ceiling, his eyes wide and fixed, as if in great concentration upon something. She hesitated to interrupt him. She stood watching the firelight flickering, looked to make certain there were enough coals in the bucket for several hours, then studied the small bookcase on the nearer wall to see what he had chosen to read before the attack. She saw books on various other countries—Africa, India, the Far East—and at least a dozen on forms of travel, letters and memoirs of explorers, botanists and observers of the customs and habits of other cultures. There was one large and beautifully bound book on the art of Islam, another on the history of Byzantium. Another seemed to be on the Arab and Moorish conquests of North Africa and Spain before the rise of Ferdinand and Isabella had driven them south again. Beside it was a book on Arabic art, mathematics and inventions.
She must make some contact with him. If she had to force the issue, then she would. She walked forward to where he must see her, even if only from the corner of his eye.
“You have an interesting collection of books,” she said conversationally. “Have you ever traveled?”
He turned his head to stare at her.
“I know you cannot speak, but you can nod your head,” she went on. “Have you?”
He shook his head very slightly. It was communication, but the animosity was still in his eyes.
“Do you plan to, when you are better?”
Something closed inside his mind. She could see the change in him quite clearly, although it was so slight as to defy description.
“I’ve been to the Crimea,” she said, disregarding his withdrawal. “I was there during the war. Of course, I saw mostly battlefields and hospitals, but there were occasions when I saw something of the people and the countryside. It is always extraordinary, almost indecent to me, how the flowers go on blooming and so many things seem exactly the same, even when the world is turning upside down with men killing and dying in their
He turned his head to regard Hester with only mild curiosity, and still what she could not help feeling was dislike.
“How do you do, Mr. Duff,” she said rather more coolly than she had originally intended. She had nursed very awkward patients before, but for all her realization, it was still disturbing to be disliked by someone for whom she had an instinctive pity and with whom she would spend the next weeks, or months, constantly—and in most intimate circumstances.
He blinked but stared back at her in silence. It was going to be a difficult beginning, whatever might follow.
Sylvestra looked faintly embarrassed. She turned from Rhys to Hester.
“Perhaps I had better show you your room?”
“Thank you,” Hester accepted. She would change into a plainer and more practical dress, and return alone to try to get to know Rhys Duff and learn what there was she could do to help him.
Her first evening in the Duff house was unfamiliar and oddly lonely. She had frequently been among people who were profoundly distressed by violence or bereavement, even by crime.She had lived with people under the pressure of investigation by strangers into the most private and vulnerable parts of their lives. She had known people whom dreadful circumstances had caused to be suspicious and frightened of each other. But she had never before nursed a patient who was conscious and yet unable to speak. There was a silence in the whole house which gave her a sense of isolation. Sylvestra herself was a quiet woman, not given to conversing except when she had some definite message to impart, not talking simply for companionship, as most women do.
The servants were muted, as if in the presence of the dead, not chattering or gossiping among themselves, as was habitual.
When Hester returned to Rhys’s room she found him lying on his back staring up at the ceiling, his eyes wide and fixed, as if in great concentration upon something. She hesitated to interrupt him. She stood watching the firelight flickering, looked to make certain there were enough coals in the bucket for several hours, then studied the small bookcase on the nearer wall to see what he had chosen to read before the attack. She saw books on various other countries—Africa, India, the Far East—and at least a dozen on forms of travel, letters and memoirs of explorers, botanists and observers of the customs and habits of other cultures. There was one large and beautifully bound book on the art of Islam, another on the history of Byzantium. Another seemed to be on the Arab and Moorish conquests of North Africa and Spain before the rise of Ferdinand and Isabella had driven them south again. Beside it was a book on Arabic art, mathematics and inventions.
She must make some contact with him. If she had to force the issue, then she would. She walked forward to where he must see her, even if only from the corner of his eye.
“You have an interesting collection of books,” she said conversationally. “Have you ever traveled?”
He turned his head to stare at her.
“I know you cannot speak, but you can nod your head,” she went on. “Have you?”
He shook his head very slightly. It was communication, but the animosity was still in his eyes.
“Do you plan to, when you are better?”
Something closed inside his mind. She could see the change in him quite clearly, although it was so slight as to defy description.
“I’ve been to the Crimea,” she said, disregarding his withdrawal. “I was there during the war. Of course, I saw mostly battlefields and hospitals, but there were occasions when I saw something of the people and the countryside. It is always extraordinary, almost indecent to me, how the flowers go on blooming and so many things seem exactly the same, even when the world is turning upside down with men killing and dying in their
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