was delicious, thank you. And thank you for taking me in, for rescuing me.”
“I was hardly going to leave you out there to drown, now was I?”
Chapter Twenty
Little Embers, Autumn 1951
Richard often started his therapy sessions with a piece of music, taking care to select something soothing that might suit his patient. It helped to achieve a calm state of mind so that he could begin to probe deeper into the events that brought them to Embers in the first place. For Esther, he chose the Vaughan Williams again, having seen how it affected her the first time he played it. It didn’t hurt that it was also one of his favorite pieces.
Nearly ten days had passed since her arrival and the presence of a woman on the island hadn’t been as disruptive as he had initially feared, at least as far as the other patients were concerned.
Robbie in particular had taken a shine to her. He had seen them both in the garden, Robbie leaning on his shovel, seemingly engaged in earnest conversation, and Esther holding her hair off her face as the wind tried to grasp it. He had noticed how the fresh air brought pinkness to her pale complexion and that she had begun to eat a little more at each meal. He was aware that she had a small supply of Seconal—John had given him details of the medication she’d been prescribed—but he had preferred to let her finish them rather than distress her further by taking them away. He would not be prescribing any more, however. His aim was to wean his patients off all sedatives and stimulants as their condition improved. A small dose of valerian, if they were plagued by nightmares, was the most he would allow.
In their daily meetings he could see that she had slowly begun to trust him, telling him small details of her life in London, how she loved to walk on the Heath in spring, her favorite place to swim in summer. True, they had only talked generally, and he had not broached the subject of her recent past yet. It would take time before she would be able to unburden herself. One morning, they had been talking of the bathing ponds when he dared to ask the question.
“Tell me about your children, Esther.”
She blanched, but recovered herself quickly. “Well, Teddy is nearly two and a half and a bit of a handful—John likes to call him Teddy the Terror in fact. He’s mischievous, but such a happy little chap, and so loving . . . I’m afraid I’m not always a terribly good mother to him.” She lapsed into silence.
“What makes you say that?” he asked gently.
“Well, I’m here, aren’t I? I should be at home, looking after him, like a proper mother would be.”
“Now don’t blame yourself for that; it can’t be helped. And you’re here to get well again, so that you can be a good mother again.”
“But I’m perfectly well. I’ve just been a little out of sorts, that’s all.” She brushed imaginary crumbs from her skirt and shifted in her seat. “A bit blue, that is if I was forced to admit to anything.”
He smiled inwardly at the understatement. “Are you sure about that, Esther? What about your other child?”
“My other child?”
He deliberately left a long silence. It was one of the oldest tricks in a psychologist’s book. You had to leave space for the patient to go inside themselves, to let the silence stretch until they filled it with what had often been buried deep. Esther was stubborn though, self-contained, and the silence stretched and stretched, all while she remained perfectly still.
The dong of the grandfather clock in the hall announced it was time for lunch and he reluctantly drew their session to an end. “Let’s chat some more tomorrow, shall we?” he said, as if nothing untoward had happened. “Why don’t you go on to the kitchen and I’ll tidy up a few things here?”
Esther got to her feet, an economy of motion that was graceful and fluid. It pleased him inordinately to watch her: tramping along the seashore, sipping tea at breakfast, the way one side of her mouth curled upward in wry good humor at something Wilkie or Robbie said. It probably wasn’t right to be so affected by her presence, but he found it impossible not to be.
She gave him a brief, questioning glance as she left the room and Richard felt himself color, as if she had