"Thank you so much for coming. It is not always easy to visit people who are ill, or bereaved. One never knows what to say…”

"My dear, what kind of a friend would one be if the moment one was needed, one chose to be somewhere else? I have never seen you adopt that course!" Fidelis assured, leaning forward.

Sylvestra shrugged. "There has been so little…”

"Nothing like this," Fidelis agreed. "But there has been unpleasantness, even if largely unspoken, and you have felt it, and been there with companionship.”

Sylvestra smiled her acknowledgement.

The conversation became general, of trivial current events, family affairs. Sylvestra recounted the latest letters from Amalia in India, of course still unaware of events in London. She wrote of the poverty she saw, and particularly of the disease and lack of clean water, a subject which seemed to trouble her greatly. Hester was drawn in sufficiently for good manners. Then Fidelis asked her about her experiences in the Crimea. Her interest seemed quite genuine.

"It must feel very strange to you to come home to England after the danger and responsibility of your position out there," she said with a puckered brow.

"It was difficult to alter the attitude of one's mind," Hesteradmitted with massive understatement. She had found it utterly impossible. One month she was dealing with dying men, terrible injuries, decisions that affected lives, then a month later she was required to behave like an obedient and grateful dependant, to have no more opinions upon anything more important or controversial than a hemline or a pudding!

Fidelis smiled and there was a flash of amusement in her eyes as if she had some awareness of what the truth may be.

"Have you met Dr. Wade? Yes, of course you have. He served in the Navy for many years, you know? I imagine you will have a certain amount in common with him. He is a most remarkable man. He has great strength, both of purpose and of character.”

Hester recalled Corriden Wade's face as he had stood on the landing talking to her about the sailors he had known, the men who had fought with Nelson, who had seen the great sea battles which had turned the tide of history fifty-five years ago, when England stood alone against the massive armies of Napoleon, allied with Spain, and the fate of Europe was in the balance. She had seen the fire of imagination in his eyes, the knowledge of what it meant, and the cost in lives and pain.

She had heard in the timbre of his voice his admiration for the dedication and the sacrifice of those men.

"Yes," she said with surprising vehemence. "Yes, he is. He was telling me something of his experiences.”

"I know my husband admires him very much," Sylvestra remarked. "He has known him for close to twenty years. Of course not so well to begin with. That would be before he came ashore." There was a pensiveness in her face for a moment, as though she had thought of something else, something she did not understand. Then it passed and she turned to Fidelis. "It is strange to think how much of a person's life you cannot share, even though you see them every day, and discuss all sorts of things with them, have a home and family in common, even a destiny shared. And yet the part which formed so much of what they think and feel and believe all happened in places you have never been to, and were unlike all you have experienced yourself.”

"I suppose it is," Fidelis said slowly, her fair brows furrowed very slightly. "There is so much one observes, but will never understand.

We see what appears to be the same events, and yet when we speak about them afterwards they are quite different, as if we were not discussing the same thing at all. I used to wonder if it was memory, now I know it is quite a different perception in the first place. I suppose that is part of growing up." She smiled very slightly, at her own foolishness. "You realise that people do not necessarily feel or think as you do yourself. Some things cannot be communicated.”

"Can't they?" Sylvestra challenged. "Surely that is what speech is for?”

"Words are only labels," Fidelis replied, taking the thoughts. Hester felt it would be too bold of her to express them herself. "A way of describing an idea. If you do not know what the idea is, then the label does not tell you.”

Sylvestra was plainly puzzled.

"I remember Joel trying to explain some Greek or Arabic ideas to me,”

Fidelis attempted to clarify. "I did not understand, because we do not have such a concept in our culture." She smiled ruefully. "In the end all he could do was use their word for it. It did not help in the slightest. I still had no idea what it was." She looked at Hester.

"Can you tell me what it is like to watch a young soldier die of cholera in Scutari, or see the wagon loads of mangled bodies come in from Sebastopol, or Balaclava, some of them dying of hunger and cold? I mean, can you tell me so that I will feel what you felt?”

"No." The bare word was enough. Hester looked at this woman with the extraordinary face far more closely than before. At first she had seemed simply another well-bred wife of a successful man, come to offer her sympathy to a friend bereaved. In what had begun as an afternoon's trivial conversation, she had touched on one of the mysteries of loneliness and misunderstanding that underlay so many incomplete relationships. She saw in Sylvestra's eyes the sudden flare of her own incomprehension. Perhaps the chasm between Rhys and herself was more than his loss of speech? Maybe words would not have conveyed what had really happened to him anyway?

And what of Leighton Duff? How well had she known him? She could see that thought reflected in her dark eyes even now.

Fidelis was watching Sylvestra too, her lop-sided face touched with concern. How much had she been told, or had she guessed of that night?

Had she any idea of why Leighton Duff had gone to St. Giles?

"No," Hester broke the silence. "I think there must always be experiences we can share only imperfectly, for any of us.”

Fidelis smiled briefly, again the shadow behind her eyes. "The wisest thing, my dear, is to accept a certain blindness, and not either to blame yourself, or to blame others too much. You must succeed by your own terms, not anyone else's.”

It was a curious remark, and Hester had the fleeting impression that it was made with some deeper meaning which Sylvestra would understand. She was not sure if it referred to Rhys, or to Leighton Duff, or simply to some generality of their lives which was relevant to this new and consuming misery. Whatever it was, Fidelis Kynaston wished Sylvestra to believe she understood it.

Their tea was cold and the tiny sandwiches eaten when Arthur Kynaston returned, looking slightly flushed but far less tense than when he had gone up.

"How is he?" his mother asked before Sylvestra could speak.

"He seems in good spirits," he replied hastily. He was too young, too clear-faced to lie well. He had obviously been profoundly shaken, but was trying to conceal it from Sylvestra. "I'm sure when his cuts and bruises have healed, he'll feel a different man. He was really quite interested in Belzoni. I promised to bring him some drawings, if that's all right?”

"Of course!" Sylvestra said quickly. "Yes… yes, please do!" She seemed relieved. At last something was returning to normal, it was a moment when things were back to the sanity, the wholeness of the past.

Fidelis rose to her feet and put her hand on her son's arm. "That would be most kind. Now I think we should allow Mrs. Duff a little time to herself." She turned and bade Hester goodbye, then looked at Sylvestra. "If there is anything whatever I can do, my dear, you have only to let me know. If you wish to talk, I am always ready to listen, and then forget… selectively. I have an excellent ability to forget.”