by Anne Perry
“And Gisela?” Hester asked curiously. “What did they feel about her?”
“They resented her,” Dagmar replied. “In a way, it was as if she had stolen him from us.”
“What is his brother like?”
“Waldo? Oh!” Dagmar laughed as if some memory amused her. “Much plainer, much duller, at first. He hasn’t any of Friedrich’s charm. But we grew to appreciate him. And, of course, his wife was always popular. It makes such a difference, you know. Perhaps in a way Ulrike was right. Whom we marry does alter us more than I used to think. In fact, only when you ask me do I realize how both brothers changed over the years. Waldo became stronger and wiser, and he learned how to win people’s affection. I think he’s happy, and that makes people kinder, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” Hester said with sudden feeling. “Yes, it does. What happened to Countess Rostova after Friedrich and Gisela left? Did she miss him terribly?”
Dagmar seemed surprised by the question.
“I don’t know. She did some very strange things. She went to Cairo and took a boat up the Nile to Karnak. But I don’t know if that had anything to do with Friedrich or if she would have gone anyway. I liked Zorah, but I can’t say I ever understood her. She had some most peculiar ideas.”
“For example?” Hester asked.
“Oh, about what women could achieve.” Dagmar shook her head, laughing a little. “She even wanted us all to band together and refuse to have relations with our husbands unless they gave us some sort of political power. I mean … she was quite mad! Of course, that was when she was very young.”
Something stirred in Hester’s memory. “Wasn’t there a Greek play about something like that?”
“Greek?” Dagmar was amazed.
“Yes, ancient Greek. All the women wanted to stop a war between two city-states … or something of the sort.”
“Oh. I don’t know. Anyway, it’s absurd.”
Hester did not argue, but she thought perhaps Zorah was not as alien to her own thoughts as she had supposed. She could imagine Rathbone’s reaction if she were to tell him of such an idea. It made her laugh even to contemplate it.
Dagmar mistook her reaction, and relaxed, smiling as well, forgetting old tragedies and present threats for a while as they walked the length of the conservatory and smelled the flowers and the damp earth, before Hester went to see how Robert was.
As usual, she climbed the stairs and walked across the landing almost silently. She stood outside Robert’s door, which was open about a foot, as was appropriate while he had a female visitor. She looked in, not wishing to interrupt should they be in conversation.
The room was full of sunlight.
Robert was lying back against his pillows, smiling, his attention entirely upon Victoria. She was reading to him from Malory’s Morte d’Arthur, the love story of Tristram and Isolde. Her voice was gentle and urgent, filled with tragedy, and yet there was a music in it which transcended the immediacy of the quiet sickroom in an elegant London house and became all magic and doomed love, a universal longing.
Hester crept away and went into the dressing room where she had a cot bed made up so she could be close to Robert and respond instantly if he called her. She busied herself with a few duties of tidying up, folding and putting away clothes the laundry maid had brought back.
It was fifteen minutes later when she tapped on the door between her room and Robert’s, and then gently pushed it open to see if perhaps he would like something to eat or a cup of tea.
“Next time I’ll read about the Siege Perilous and the coming of Sir Galahad,” Victoria said eagerly. “It is so full of courage and honor.”
Robert sighed. Hester could see his face, pale and pinched with a kind of sadness at the corners of his mouth. Or perhaps it was fear. Surely he must have realized that he might never recover. He had said nothing to her, but he must have lain alone in that silent, tidy room with everything placed there by his parents’ love. They were always just beyond the door watching, aching to help him, and knowing that nothing they could do did more than touch the surface. Underneath, the consuming fear, the darkness of dread, was beyond their ability to reach. It must never be out of their minds, and yet they dare not speak it.
Looking at Robert’s eyes with the shadowed skin around them, thin and bruised, Hester knew it was just under the surface of all he said.
“Good,” he replied politely to Victoria. “That’s very kind of you.”
She looked at him steadily.
“Would you rather that I didn’t?” she asked.
“No!” he responded quickly. “It sounds an excellent story. I think I probably know much of it already. It will be good to hear it again, as it should be told. You read so well.” His voice dropped on the last word, in spite of his effort to be courteous and appreciative.
“But you don’t want to listen to stories about heroes who can fight, and wield swords, and ride horses, when you are lying in bed and cannot move,” Victoria said with shattering bluntness.
Hester felt a chill run through her as if she had swallowed ice.
Robert’s face went white. He was still for so long she was afraid that when he did speak he would say something so violent it would be irretrievable.
If Victoria was afraid, she hid it superbly. Her back was ramrod stiff, her thin shoulders straight, her head high.
“There were times when I didn’t want to either,” she said quite calmly, but there was a tremor in her voice. The memory hurt.
“You can walk!” The words tore out of Robert as if speaking them caused him a physical pain.
“I couldn’t for a long time,” she replied, now almost matter-of-factly. “And now, when I do, it still hurts.” Her voice was trembling, and there was a flush of shame and misery on her cheeks, the delicate bones showing under the too-thin flesh. “I walk badly. I’m clumsy. I knock things. You don’t hurt.”
“I …” He started to retaliate, then realized he had no grounds. His pain of the body was almost gone. Now it was all the desperate, aching, helpless pain of the mind, the knowledge of imprisonment with his lifeless legs.
Again Victoria said nothing.
“I’m sorry for your pain,” he said at last. “But I would rather hurt, and be able to move, even awkwardly, than spend the rest of my life lying here like a cabbage.”
“And I would rather be able to lie beautifully on a chaise longue.” Her voice was thick with emotion. “I’d like to be loved by an honorable family, knowing I would always be cared for, never cold or hungry or alone. And I would love not to dread the pain coming back. But we can neither of us choose. And perhaps you will walk again. You don’t know.”
Again he was silent for a long time.
Behind the door, Hester dared not make the slightest movement.
“Will your pain get better?” he said at last.
“No. I have been told not,” she replied.
He drew a breath as if to ask her more, perhaps about her means and why she feared cold and hunger, but even in his distress he pulled back from such indelicacy.
“I’m sorry.”
“Of course you are,” she agreed. “And it doesn’t help in the slightest, knowing that you are not the only one to suffer. I know that. It doesn’t help me either.”
He leaned back on the pillows, turning away from her. The soft brown hair flopped over his brow and he ignored it. The sunlight made bright patterns on the floor.
“I suppose you are going to tell me it will get better with time,” he said bitterly.
“No, I’m not,” she contradicted him. “There are days when it’s better and days when it’s worse. But when you can’t live in your body, then you must make the best of living in your mind.”
This time he did not reply, and eventually Victoria stood up. She half turned, and Hester could see in the light the tears on her face.
“I’m sorry,” the girl said gently. “I think perhaps I spoke when I should not have. It was too soon.
I should have waited longer. Or perhaps I should not have been the one to say it at all. I did because it is too hard for those who love you so much and have never lain where you lie.” She shook her head a little. “They don’t know whether to be honest or not, or how to say it. They lie awake and hurt, helplessly, and weigh one choice against another, and cannot decide.”
“But you can?” He turned back to her, his face twisted with anger. “You have been hurt, so you know everything! You have the right to decide what to tell me, and how, and when?”
Victoria looked as if she had been slapped, but she did not retract.
“Will it be any different tomorrow or next week?” she asked, trying to steady her voice and not quite succeeding. She was standing awkwardly, and from the doorway Hester could see she was adjusting her weight to try to ease the pain. “You lie alone and wonder,” she went on. “Not daring to say the words, even in your mind, as if they could make it more real. Part of you has already faced it, another part is still screaming out that it is not true. And for you perhaps it won’t be. How much longer do you want to fight with yourself?”
He had no answer. He stared at her while the seconds ticked away.
She took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders, then limped to the door, bumping against the chair. She turned back to him.
“Thank you for sharing Tristram and Isolde with me. I enjoyed your company and your voyage of the mind with me. Good night.” And without waiting for him to respond, she pulled the door wider and went out into the landing and down the stairs.
Hester left Robert alone until it was time to take him his supper. He was lying exactly as Victoria had left him, and he looked wretched.
“I don’t want to eat,” he said as soon as he realized Hester was there. “And don’t tell me it would be good for me. It wouldn’t. I should choke.”
“I wasn’t going to,” she answered quietly. “I agree with you. I think perhaps you need to be alone. Shall I close the door and ask that no one disturb you?”
He looked at her with slight surprise.
“Yes. Yes, please do that.”
She nodded, closing one door and then the other, leaving only one small lamp burning. If he wept himself to sleep, he should at least have privacy to do it, and no one to know or remember it afterwards.
4
HESTER WAS AWARE of Robert’s restlessness all night, but she knew she could not help, and to intrude would be inexcusable.
The following morning she found him still asleep, his face pale. He looked very young and very tired. He was just over twenty, but she could see the boy in his features too easily, and feel the isolation and the pain. She did not disturb him. Breakfast hardly mattered.
“Is he all right?” Dagmar said anxiously, meeting Hester on the stairs. “His door was closed last night. I did not like to go in.” She blushed faintly, and Hester knew she must have opened the door and heard him weeping. She could only imagine Dagmar’s distress. It must ache inside her beyond bearing that there was nothing to do except bear it. For his sake, she would also try to hide it.
Hester did not know what to say. Perhaps she should not mask the truth any longer. It would need a deliberate lie to do it.
“I think he may be facing the possibility that the paralysis may not go away,” she said haltingly. “Of course, it may …”
Dagmar started to speak, but her voice weakened and would not come. Her mind could find hundreds of words, and none that helped. Hester could see it all in her eyes. Dagmar stood still for a moment, then, unable to maintain her composure, she turned and ran down the stairs again and blindly across the hall to the morning room, where she could be alone.
Hester went back upstairs feeling sick.
In the middle of the morning Robert woke up saying that his head was throbbing and his mouth was dry. Hester helped him into the nearby chair. In the hospital in Scutari, she had learned how to lift people who did not have the strength or the feeling to lift themselves, even men larger and heavier than Robert. She gave him the bowl of water so he could wash and shave himself while she changed the bed, put on clean sheets and pillow slips, plumped them up and smoothed the coverlet. She was not finished when Dagmar knocked and came in.
Robert was composed and very grave, but he looked in command of himself. He refused his mother’s help back into bed, but, of course, he could not manage without Hester.
“If Miss Stanhope upset you yesterday,” Dagmar began, “I shall send a polite note thanking her and asking her not to come again. It can all be managed without distressing you.”
“She probably won’t come anyway,” Robert said miserably. “I was very rude to her.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t your fault—” Dagmar began.
“Yes it was! Don’t defend me as if I were a child, or an idiot, and not responsible for my actions! I’ve lost the use of my legs, not my mind!”
Dagmar winced and her eyes filled with tears.
“I’m sorry,” Robert said immediately. “You’d better leave me alone. I don’t seem to be able to be civil to anyone, except Miss Latterly. At least she’s paid to look after me, and I daresay she’s used to people like me, who behave wretchedly to all those we should be most grateful to.”
“Are you saying you want me to go?” Dagmar tried to master her hurt, but it was naked in her face.
“No, of course not. Yes, I am. I hate hurting you! I hate myself!” He turned away, refusing to look at her.
Hester could not make up her mind whether to step in or not. Maybe this needed to run to its conclusion so all the things unsaid would not be hurting in the mind. Or maybe they were better not spoken? Then they would not have to be taken back and apologized for. And there would be no doubt afterwards whether they were forgiven or not.
“I’ll write to Miss Stanhope,” Dagmar said hesitantly.
Robert turned back quickly. “No! Please don’t. I’d … I’d like to write to her myself. I want to apologize. I need to.” He bit his lip. “Don’t do everything for me, Mama. Don’t take that much dignity from me. I can at least make my own apologies.”
“Yes …” She swallowed as if there were something stuck in her throat. “Yes, of course. Will you ask her to come again, or not to?”
“I’ll ask her to come again. She was going to read to me about Sir Galahad and the search for the Holy Grail. He found it, you know.”
“Did he?” She forced herself to smile, though tears spilled over her cheeks. “I’ll … I’ll fetch you some paper. And I’ll bring you a tray. Will you be all right with ink in bed?”
He smiled twistedly. “I had better learn, hadn’t I?”
The doctor called in the afternoon, as he did almost every day. He was quite a young man and had not the professional manner which usually distances a doctor from his patients. There was no air of authority, which to some gave great comfort and to others seemed like condescension. He examined Robert and asked him questions, always addressing him directly and without any false optimism.
Robert said very little. Hester felt certain he was trying to call up the courage to ask if he was going to walk again. He asked no other questions, and that one still seemed too enormous to grasp.
“You are progressing very satisfactorily,” the doctor said at length, closing up his bag, still speaking to Robert, not to Hester or Dagmar, who stood by. “Lying still seems to have had no adverse effect upon your circulation.”
Dagmar made as if to speak and then changed her mind.
“I will have a word with Nurse Latterly about your treatment,” the doctor went on. “You must keep from getting sores when you lie in one position.”
Robert drew in his breath and let it out again in a sigh.
“I don’t know,” the doctor said softly, answering the question his patient had not asked. “That is the truth, Mr. Ollenheim. I am not saying that if I did know I should necessarily tell you, but I should not lie, that I swear to you. It is not impossible that the nerves have been so
badly damaged that it will take a long time to regain their use. I don’t know.”
“Thank you,” Robert said uncertainly. “I was not sure if I wanted to ask.”
The doctor smiled.
But downstairs in the withdrawing room, to which Hester had followed Dagmar so that the doctor might speak to them and to Bernd at once, his manner was very grave.
“Well?” Bernd demanded, his eyes dark with fear.
“It does not look promising,” the doctor replied, letting his bag rest on the seat of one of the armchairs. “He has no feeling whatever in his legs.”
“But it will come back!” Bernd said urgently. “You told us at the time that it could take weeks, even months. We must be patient.”
“I said it may come back,” the doctor corrected. “I am deeply sorry, Baron Ollenheim, but you must be prepared for the possibility that it may not. I think it would be unfair to your son to keep that knowledge from him. There is still hope, of course, but it is by no means a certainty. The other possibility must also be considered and, as much as lies in your power, prepared for.”
“Prepared for!” Bernd was horrified; his face went slack, as if he had been struck. “How can we prepare for it?” His voice rose angrily. “Do what?” he demanded, waving his arms. “Purchase a chair with wheels? Tell him he may never stand again, let alone walk? That … that …” He stopped, unable to continue.
“Keep courage,” the doctor said painfully. “But do not pretend that the worst cannot happen. That is no kindness to him. He may have to face it.”
“Isn’t there something that can be done? I will pay anything I have … anything …”
The doctor shook his head. “If there were anything, I would have told you.”
“What can we say or do that will make it easier for him,” Dagmar asked softly, “if … if that should happen? Sometimes I don’t know whether it would be easier for him if I said something or if I didn’t.”
“I don’t know either,” the doctor admitted. “I’ve never known. There are no certain answers. Just try not to let him see too much of your own distress. And don’t deny it once he has accepted it himself. He will have sufficient battles of his own without having to fight yours as well.”