Defend and Betray

“And to his mother?” Hester asked, not knowing what to say next.

Miss Buchan looked at her, then away again and out of the window, her face puckered with pain.

“Miss Felicia was different from Miss Alexandra,” she said with something like a sob in her voice. “Poor creature. May God forgive her.”

“And yet you find it in your heart to be sorry for her?” Hester said gently, and with respect.

“Of course,” Miss Buchan replied with a sad little smile. “You know what you are taught, what everyone tells you is so. You are all alone. Who is there to ask? You do what you think-you weigh what you value most. Unity: one face to the outside world. Too much to lose, you see. She lacked the courage…”

Hester did not understand. She groped after threads of it, and the moment she had them the next piece made no sense. But how much dare she ask without risking Miss Buchan's rebuffing her and ceasing to talk at all? One word or gesture of seeming intrusion, a hint of curiosity, and she might withdraw altogether.

“It seems she had everything to lose, poor woman,” she said tentatively.

“Not now,” Miss Buchan replied with sudden bitterness. “It's all too late now. It's over-the harm is all done.”

“You don't think the trial might make a difference?” Hester said with fading hope. “You sounded before as if you did.”

Miss Buchan was silent for several minutes. Outside a gardener dropped a rake and the sound of the wood on the path came up through the open window.

“It might help Miss Alexandra,” Miss Buchan said at last. “Please God it will, although I don't see how. But what will it do to the child? And God knows, it can't alter the past for anyone else. What's done is done.”

Hester had a curious sensation, almost like a tingling in the brain. Suddenly shards of a pattern fell together, incomplete, vague, but with a tiny, hideous thread of sense.

“That is why she won't tell us,” she said very slowly. “To protect the child?”

“Tell you?” Miss Buchan faced Hester, a pucker of confusion between her brows.

“Tell us the real reason why she killed the general.”

“No-of course not,” she said slowly. “How could she? But how did you know? No one told you.”

“I guessed.”

“She'll not admit it. God help her, she thinks that is all there is to it-just the one.” Her eyes filled with tears of pity and helplessness, and she turned away again. “But I know there are others, of course there are. I knew it from his face, from the way he smiles, and tells lies, and cries at night.” She spoke very quietly, her voice full of old pain. “He's frightened, and excited, and grown up, and a tiny child, and desperately, sickeningly alone, all at the same time like his father before him, God damn him!” Miss Buchan took a long, shuddering breath, so deep it seemed to rack her whole, thin body. “Can you save her, Miss Latterly?”

“I don't know,” Hester said honestly. All the pity in the world now would not permit a lie. It was not the time. “But I will do everything I can-that I swear to you.”

Without saying anything else she stood up and left the room, closing the door behind her and walking away towards the rest of the small rooms in the wing. She was looking for Cassian.

She found him standing in the corridor outside the door to his bedroom, staring up at her, his face pale, his eyes careful.

“You did the right thing to get Edith to stop the fight,” she said matter-of-factly. “Do you like Miss Buchan?”

He continued to stare at her without speaking, his eyelids heavy, his face watchful and uncertain.

“Shall we go into your room?” she suggested. She was not sure how she was going to approach the subject, but nothing now would make her turn back. The truth was almost reached, at least this part of it.

Wordlessly he turned around and opened the door. She followed him in. Suddenly she was furious that the burden of so much tragedy, guilt and death should rest on the narrow, fragile shoulders of such a child.

He walked over to the window; the light on his face showed the marks of tears on his soft, blemishless skin. His bones were still not fully formed, his nose just begi

“Cassian,” she began quietly.

“Yes ma'am?” He looked at her, turning his head slowly.

“Miss Buchan was right, you know. Your mother is not a wicked person, and she does love you very much.”

“Then why did she kill my papa?” His lip trembled and with great difficulty he stopped himself from crying.

“You loved your papa very much?”

He nodded, his hand going up to his mouth.

The rage inside her made her tremble.

“You had some special secrets with your papa, didn't you?”

His right shoulder came up and for an instant a half smile brushed over his mouth. Then there was fear in his eyes, a guarded look.

“I'm not going to ask you about it,” she said gently. “Not if he told you not to tell anyone. Did he make you promise?”

He nodded again.

“That must have been very difficult for you?”

“Yes.”

“Because you couldn't tell Mama?”

He looked frightened and backed away half a step.

“Was that important, not to tell Mama?”

He nodded slowly, his eyes on her face.

“Did you want to tell her, at first?”

He stood quite still.

Hester waited. Far outside she heard faint murmurs from the street, carriage wheels, a horse's hooves. Beyond the window the leaves flickered in the wind and threw patterns of light across the glass.

Slowly he nodded.

“Did it hurt?”

Again the long hesitation, then he nodded.

“But it was a very grown-up thing to do, and being a man of honor, you didn't tell anyone?”

He shook his head.

“I understand.”

“Are you going to tell Mama? Papa said if she ever knew she'd hate me-she wouldn't love me anymore, she wouldn't understand, and she'd send me away. Is that what happened?” His eyes were very large, full of fear and defeat, as if in his heart he had already accepted it was true.

“No.” She swallowed hard. “She went because they took her, not because of you at all. And I'm not going to tell her, but I think perhaps she knows already-and she doesn't hate you. She'll never hate you.”

“Yes she will! Papa said so!” His voice rose in panic and he backed away from her.

“No she won't! She loves you very much indeed. So much she is prepared to do anything she can for you.”

“Then why has she gone away? She killed Papa, Grand-mama told me-and Grandpapa said so too. And they'll take her away and she'll never come back. Grandmama said so. She said I've got to forget her, not think about her anymore! She's never coming back!”

“Is that what you want to do-forget her?”

There was a long silence.

His hand came up to his mouth again. “I don't know.”

“Of course you don't, I'm sorry. I should not have asked. Are you glad now no one is doing that to you anymore- what Papa did?”

His eyelids lowered again and he hunched his right shoulder and looked at the ground.

Hester felt sick.

“Someone is. Who?”

He swallowed hard and said nothing.

“Someone is. You don't have to tell me who-not if it's secret.”

He looked up at her.

“Someone is?” she repeated.

Very slowly he nodded.

“Just one person?”

He looked down again, frightened.

“All right-it's your secret. But if you want any help any time, or someone to talk to, you go to Miss Buchan. She's very good at secrets, and she understands. Do you hear me? “

He nodded.

“And remember, your mama loves you very much, and I am going to try to do everything I can to see that she comes back to you. I promise you.”

He looked at her with steady blue eyes, slowly rilling with tears.

“I promise,” she repeated. “I'm going to start right now. Remember, if you want to be with somebody, talk to them, you go to Miss Buchan. She's here all the time, and she understands secrets-promise me?”