therefore the only ones in which I shall have pleasure, rather than the mere knowledge of duty performed. What slaves we are to conscience! I wonder how much the postman carries that is no more than obligation satisfied?
How are you? Have you any cases which you care about intensely? Or are you nursing bored old ladies with the vapors, and nothing to do with their time and money but make somebody else run around after them, and irascible colonels with gout whose only cure would be to abstain from the Port and Stilton, and who will never do that?
Have you seen William lately? I missed his last case of real interest. Of course, he told me about it afterwards, but that is hardly the same thing. He is doing so well recently that he does not need my occasional financial intervention- which of course pleases me immensely. I wish Mm to succeed. Of course I do. My support was only intended to be temporary, or I know he would not have accepted it. Men are very odd when it comes to money-unless, of course, they marry it. In which case they consider it theirs by right, as indeed it is by law.
However, I do miss the excitement of being with you, the urgency of learning the truth about some violence in secret, even though it may in the end prove to be tragic. I am not used to drifting on the surface of life, and I find the calm of it sometimes drives me into a terrible state of loneliness, as if the reality were passing me by. Am I sitting behind a window observing the world, separated by impenetrable glass?
Hester read more description of the majestic and lyrical beauty of the Highlands, but her mind was more fully tuned to the emotions which underlay it, and her own memories of the warmth of Callandra's friendship-and the honesty. In a sense, Callandra had replaced the family she was no longer close to, and she looked forward to her return.
Martha came back with a tray of tea and a rather large plate of fresh shortbread from the kitchen. She set it down and poured for both of them.
Hester put the letter aside.
Martha held her cup, waiting till it should cool sufficiently to sip. She was frowning and obviously troubled.
Hester guessed. "Did Mr. Sheldon say anything to Mrs. Sheldon about reading Indian history?" she asked. "I tried to argue him out of it, but I am almost sure I failed."
"I am afraid you did," Martha agreed, looking at her over the top of her cup. "He believes that the least that is said the soonest it will be mended-which is absolute nonsense!" Her voice was urgent with an anger she knew she should not express. "She is so lonely because she has no idea even what he is closing her out from. It isn't just the physical pain... or the memories." She stared ahead of her, her eyes on something far beyond this quiet, domestic room and the household around them, settled for the night, no sound but the hissing of the gas and the occasional creak of a floorboard.
Hester did not interrupt her.
"It is not being whole," Martha went on. "It is being used to beauty and then suddenly having to accept ugliness, deformity..." She obviously found even the word painful to say.
"Disfigurement," Hester contradicted her. "It isn't really the same."
Martha looked at her quickly. "No-no, of course not. I'm sorry. I was half thinking of something else. I..." She regarded Hester with a curious ahnost shyness, and yet her eyes were searching.
"You have experienced it before?" Hester asked very quietly, then took the first hot sip of her tea, not to press too hard.
Martha turned away again, pushing the plate of shortbread across closer to Hester. "My brother Samuel married a very pretty woman... twenty-five years ago now, it must be-or nearly. Dolly, her name was. She had the most perfect skin. Not a blemish anywhere. And lovely eyes... and fine features." She stopped, anger, pity and confusion in her face. The memory hurt her and there was something in it still fiercely unresolved.
Hester waited.
"They were happy, I think," Martha went on. "Sam adored her. They had a baby, a little girl. Phemie, they called her. That was Dolly's idea. Sam wanted to call her by a biblical name, something old-fashioned." She sipped her tea. "I can remember the day he came to tell me." She stopped and took a