The Silent Cry

There was no address where she could be certain of catching her.

Sylvestra looked up at her.

"I think the rain is turning to snow again," she said with a sigh.

"Rhys was pla

"No, neither do I," Hesteranswered quickly. "He may recover, you know.”

Sylvestra's face was wide-eyed, tense in the soft light from the gas lamps and the fire.

"Please do not be kind to me, Miss Latterly. I think perhaps I am ready to hear the truth." A very faint smile touched her face and was gone. "I received a letter from Amalia this morning. She writes about such conditions in India it makes me feel very feeble to be sitting here before the fire with everything a person could need for their physical comfort and safety, and still to imagine I have something to complain about. You must have known many soldiers, Miss Latterly?”

"Yes…”

"And their wives?”

"Yes. I knew several." She wondered why Sylvestra asked.

"Amalia has told me something of the mutiny in India," Sylvestra went on. "Of course that was three years ago now, I know, but it seems as if things will be changed for ever by it. More and more white women are being sent over there to keep their husbands company. Amalia says that it is to keep the soldiers apart from the native Indians, so they can never trust and be taken unaware like that again. Do you suppose she is right?”

"I should think it very likely," Hester replied candidly. She did not know a great deal about the circumstances of the Indian Mutiny. It had occurred too close to the end of the war in the Crimea, when she was deeply concerned with the tragic death of both her parents, with finding a means of supporting herself, and accommodating to the dramatically different way of life afforded to her when she returned to England.

Attempting to adapt to the life of a single woman rather past the best age for marriage, not possessed of the sort of family co

She had read the fearful stories and heard accounts of starvation and massacre, but she had not known anyone who had been affected personally.

"It is hard to imagine such atrocity," Sylvestra said thoughtfully. "I am begi

Hester did not interrupt.

"It seems when the Highland Regiment relieved Cawnpore, they found the hacked-up bodies, and exacted a fearful revenge, killing every one of the sepoys there. What I wanted to mention was the tale Amalia wrote me of one soldier's wife, named Bridget Widdowson, who, during the siege, was set to guard eleven mutineers, because at that time there were no men available. This she accomplished perfectly, marching up and down in front of them all day, terrifying them immobile, and it was only when she was finally relieved by a regular soldier that they all escaped. Is that not remarkable?”

"Indeed it is," Hesteragreed wholeheartedly. She saw the wonder and the amazed admiration in Sylvestra's eyes. There was something stirring in her which was going to find the loneliness of this house without her husband, the restrictions of society widowhood and her enforced idleness as a kind of imprisonment. Rhys's dependency would only add to it, in time. "But the heat and the endemic disease are things I should find very trying," she said to counter it.

"Would you?" It was a genuine question, not an idle remark. "Why did you go out to the Crimea, Miss Latterly?”

Hester was startled.

"Oh, forgive me," Sylvestra apologised immediately. "That was an intrusive question. You may have had all ma

Hester knew what she was thinking. She laughed outright.

"It is not a broken affair of the heart, I promise you. I wanted the adventure, the freedom to use such brains and talents as I have where I would be sufficiently needed that necessity would remove prejudices against women's initiative.”

"I imagine you succeeded?" There was vivid interest in Sylvestra's face.

Hester smiled. "Most assuredly.”

"My husband would have admired that," Sylvestra said with certainty.

"He loved courage and the fire to be different, inventive." She looked rueful. "I sometimes wonder if he would have liked to have gone somewhere like India, or perhaps Africa. Amalia's letters would thrill him, but I had a feeling they also awoke a restlessness in him, even a kind of envy. He would have loved new frontiers, the challenge of discovery, the chance of great leadership. He was an outstanding man, Miss Latterly. He had a most remarkable mind. Amalia gets her courage from him, and Constance too.”

"And Rhys?" Hester said quietly.

The shadow returned to Sylvestra's face. "Yes… Rhys too. He wanted so much for Rhyt. Is it terrible of me to say that there is a kind of way in which I am glad he did not live to see this… Rhys so ill, unable to speak… and so… so changed!" She shook her head a little. "It would have hurt him beyond bearing!" She stared down at her hands. "Then I wish with all my heart that Leighton could have lived longer, and they could have grown closer together. Now it is too late. Rhys will never know his father as man to man, never appreciate his qualities as I did.”

Hester thought of Monk's vision of what happened in the dark alley in St. Giles. She hoped with an overwhelming fierceness that it was not true. It was hideous. For Sylvestra it would be more than she could live through and keep her sanity.

"You will have to tell him," she said aloud. "There will be a great deal you can say to make his father's true character and skills real to him. He will need your company as he recovers, and your encouragement.”

"Do you think so?" Sylvestra asked quickly, hope and doubt in her eyes. "At the moment he seems to find even my presence distressing.

There is much anger inside him, Miss Latterly. Do you understand it?”

Hester did not, and it frightened her with its underlying cruelty. She had seen that exultancy in the power to hurt a number of times, and it chilled her even more than Monk's words.

"I dare say it is only the frustration of not being able to speak," she lied. "And of course the physical pain.”

"Yes… yes, I suppose so." Sylvestra picked up her embroidery again and resumed stitching.

The maid came in and banked up the fire, taking the coal bucket away with her to refill it.

The following evening Fidelis Kynaston called again, as she had promised she would, and Sylvestra had urged Hester to take another time away from Ebury Street and do as she pleased, perhaps visit with friends. She had accepted with pleasure, most particularly because Oliver Rathbone had again invited her to dine with him, and to attend the theatre, if she cared to.