Defend and Betray

Hester did not reply straightaway. She understood the emotion and the situation profoundly. She had gone to the Crimea because she wanted to contribute to the effort towards the war, and to relieve the appalling conditions of the men freezing, starving, and dying of wounds and disease in Sebastopol. She had returned home in haste on hearing of the deaths of both her parents in the most tragic circumstances. Very soon after, she had learned that there was no money, and although she had accepted the hospitality of her surviving brother and his wife for a short time, it could not be a permanent arrangement. They would have agreed, but Hester would have found it intolerable. She must find her own way and not be an added burden upon their strained circumstances.

She had come home on fire to reform nursing in England, as Miss Nightingale had in the Crimea. Indeed most of the women who had served with her had espoused the same cause, and with similar fervor.

However, Hester's first and only hospital appointment had ended in dismissal. The medical establishment was not eager to be reformed, least of all by opinionated young women, or indeed by women at all. And considering that no women had ever studied medicine, and such an idea was unthinkable, that was not to be wondered at. Nurses were largely unskilled, employed to wind bandages, fetch and carry, dust, sweep, stoke fires, empty slops and keep spirits high and morality above question.

“Well?” Edith interrupted. “Surely it is not a hopeless cause.” There was a lightness in her voice but her eyes were earnest, full of both hope and fear, and Hester could see she cared deeply.

“Of course not,” she said soberly. “But it is not easy. Too many occupations, of the forms that are open to women, are of a nature where you would be subject to a kind of discipline and condescension which would be intolerable to you.”

“You managed,” Edith pointed out.

“Not indefinitely,” Hester corrected. “And the feet that you are not dependent upon it to survive will take a certain curb from your tongue which was on mine.”

“Then what is left?”

They were standing on the gravel path between the flowers, a child with a hoop a dozen yards to the left, two little girls in white pinafores to the right.

“I am not sure, but I shall endeavor to find out,” Hester promised. She stopped and turned to look at Edith's pale face and troubled eyes. “There will be something. You have a good hand, and you said you speak French. Yes, I remember mat. I will search and enquire and let you know in a few days' time. Say a week or so. No, better make it a little longer, I would like to have as complete an answer as I can.”

“A week on Saturday?” Edith suggested. “That will be May the second. Come to tea.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes of course. We shall not be entertaining socially, but you are coming as a friend. It will be quite acceptable.”

“Then I shall. Thank you.”

Edith's eyes widened for a moment, giving her face a brightness, then she clasped Hester's hand quickly and let it go, turning on her heel and striding along the path between the daffodils and down towards the lodge without looking back.

Hester walked for another half hour, enjoying the air before returning to the street and finding another hansom to take her back to Major Tiplady and her duties.

The major was sitting on a chaise longue, which he did under protest, considering it an effeminate piece of furniture, but he enjoyed being able to stare out of the window at passersby, and at the same time keep his injured leg supported.

“Well?” he asked as soon as she was in. “Did you have a pleasant walk? How was your friend?”

Automatically she straightened the blanket around him.

“Don't fuss!” he said sharply. “You didn't answer me.

How was your friend? You did go out to meet a friend, didn't you?”

“Yes I did.” She gave the cushion an extra punch to plump it up, in spite of his catching her eye deliberately. It was a gentle banter they had with each other, and both enjoyed it. Provoking her had been his best entertainment since he had been restricted to either his bed or a chair, and he had developed a considerable liking for her. He was normally somewhat nervous of women, having spent most of his life in the company of men and having been taught that the gentle sex was different in every respect, requiring treatment incomprehensible to any but the most sensitive of men. He was delighted to find Hester intelligent, not given to fainting or taking offense where it was not intended, not seeking compliments at every fit and turn, never giggling, and best of all, quite interested in military tactics, a blessing he could still hardly believe.

“And how is she?” he demanded, glaring at her out of brilliant pale blue eyes, his white mustache bristling.

“In some shock,” Hester replied. ”Would you like tea?”

'Why?”

“Because it is teatime. And crumpets?”

“Yes I would. Why was she shocked? What did you say to her?”

“That I was very sorry,” Hester smiled with her back to him, as she was about to ring the bell. It was not part of her duty to cook-fortunately, because she had little skill at it.

“Don't prevaricate with me!” he said hotly.

Hester rang the bell, then turned back to him and changed her expression to one of sobriety. “Her brother met with a fatal accident last evening,” she told him. “He fell over the banister and died immediately.”

“Good gracious! Are you sure?” His face was instantly grave, his pink-and-white skin as usual looking freshly scrubbed and i

“Perfectly, I am afraid.”

“Was he a drinking man?”

“I don't believe so. At least not to that extent.”

The maid answered the summons and Hester requested tea and hot crumpets with butter. When the girl had gone, she continued with the story. “He fell onto a suit of armor, and tragically the halberd struck his chest.”

Tiplady stared at her, still not totally sure whether she was exercising some bizarre female sense of humor at his expense. Then he realized the gravity in her face was quite real.

“Oh dear. I am very sorry.” He frowned. “But you ca

“I have no idea.” She had not thought about it, but now that she did, she appreciated his view. To have fallen so hard and so accurately upon the point of a halberd held by an inanimate suit of armor, in such a way that it penetrated through clothes into the flesh, and between the ribs into the body, was an extraordinary chance. The angle must have been absolutely precise, the halberd wedged very firmly in the gauntlet, and as Major Tiplady said, the force very great indeed. ”Perhaps he was. I had never met him, but his sister is tall, although she is very slight. Maybe he was of a bigger build. He was a soldier.”

Major Tiplady's eyebrows shot up. “Was he?”

“Yes. A general, I believe.”

The major's face twitched with an amusement he found extreme difficulty in concealing, although he was perfectly aware of its unsuitability. He had recently developed a sense of the absurd which alarmed him. He thought it was a result of lying in bed with little to do but read, and too much company of a woman.

“How very unfortunate,” he said, staring at the ceiling. “I hope they do not put on his epitaph that he was finally killed by impaling himself upon a weapon held by an empty suit of armor. It does seem an anticlimax to an outstanding military career, and to smack of the ridiculous. And a general too!”