Part 13 (2/2)

His choice of words was not meant to hurt, but Hester saw reflected in them her own situation: hired to help in a time of pain and despair, leaned on, trusted, at the heart of things for a brief while; then, when the crisis was past, paid, thanked and dismissed. Neither she nor Victoria was part of permanent life; they were not socially equal, and were friends only in a very narrow and closely defined sense.

Except that Victoria was not to be paid, because her situation was so less well understood.

”Perhaps we should allow Robert to make the decision,” she said with less dignity or control than she had wished. She felt angry for Victoria, and for herself, and very pointedly alone.

”Very well,” he agreed reluctantly, totally unaware of her emotions. It had not even occurred to him that she might have any. ”At least for the time being.”

In fact, Victoria came the very next morning. Hester saw her before she went upstairs. She beckoned her to the landing, close to a huge Chinese vase planted with a potted palm. The sunlight streamed in through the windows, making bright squares on the polished wood of the floor.

Victoria was dressed in a dark plum-colored wool. The dress must be one left over from more fortunate days. It became her very well, lending a little color to her cheeks, and the white collar lightened her eyes, but it could not remove the anxiety or the quick flash of understanding.

”He knows, doesn't he?” she said before Hester had time to speak.

There was no point in evasion. ”Yes.”

”How about the Baron and Baroness? They must be very hurt.”

”Yes. I...I think you may be able to help. You will be less closely caught up. In a sense, you have been there already. The shock and the anger have pa.s.sed.”

”Sometimes.” Victoria smiled, but there was bleakness in her eyes. ”There are mornings when I wake up, and for the first few minutes I've forgotten, and then it all comes back just as if it were new.”

”I'm sorry.” Hester felt ashamed. She thought of all the hopes and dreams any young girl would have-for parties and b.a.l.l.s, romance, love and marriage, children of her own one day. To realize in one blow that that was never possible must be as bad as everything Robert could face. ”That was a stupid thing for me to say,” she apologized profoundly. ”I meant that you have learned to control it, instead of it controlling you.”

Victoria's smile became real for a moment, before it faded and the trouble came back to her eyes. ”Will he see me, do you think?”

”Yes, although I am not sure what mood he will be in or what you should hope for, or say.” Victoria did not reply, but started across the landing, her back straight, swis.h.i.+ng her skirts a little, the color rich where it caught the sunlight. She wanted to look pretty, graceful, and she moved awkwardly. Behind her, Hester could tell that it was a bad day for pain. Suddenly she almost hated Bernd for his dismissal of the girl as not a lasting friend for Robert, not someone who could have a place in his life once he was resigned to his dependence and had learned to live within it.

Victoria knocked, and when she heard Robert's voice, opened the door and went in. She left the door open, as propriety demanded.

”You look better,” she said as soon as she was inside. ”I was afraid you might feel ill again.”

”Why?” he asked. ”The disease is over.”

She did not evade the issue. ”Because you know you will not get better. Sometimes shock or grief can make you feel ill. It can certainly give you a headache or make you sick.”

”I feel terrible,” he said flatly. ”If I knew how to die, as an act of will, I probably would...except that Mama would be bound to feel as if it were her fault. So I'm caught.”

”It's a beautiful day.” Her voice was quite clear and matter-of-fact. ”I think you should come downstairs and go out into the garden.”

”In my imagination?” he asked with a hard edge of sarcasm. ”Are you going to describe the garden for me? You don't need to. I know what it looks like, and I'd rather you didn't. That's like pouring vinegar in the wound.”

”I can't tell you about it,” she replied honestly. ”I've never been in your garden. I've always come straight up here. I meant that you should get someone to carry you down. As you say, you are not ill. And it isn't cold. You could sit out there perfectly well and see for yourself. I should like to see the garden. You could show me.”

”What, and have the butler carry me around while I tell you 'This is the rose bed, these are the Michaelmas daisies, there are the chrysanthemums!' ” he said bitterly. ”I don't think the butler is strong enough! Or do you envisage a couple of footmen, one on either side?”

”The footman could bring you down, and you could sit on a chair on the lawn,” she replied, still refusing to respond emotionally, whatever hurt or anger was inside her. ”From there you could point out the beds to me. I don't feel like walking very far today myself.”

There was a minute's silence.

”Oh,” he said at last, his tone different, subdued. ”You have pain?”

”Yes.”

”I'm sorry. I didn't think.”

”Will you show me the garden, please?”

”I should feel-” He stopped.

”Then stop thinking how you feel,” she replied. ”Just do it! Or are you going to spend the rest of your life here in bed?”

”Don't you dare speak...” His voice trailed off.

There was a long silence.

”Are you coming?” Victoria said at last.

The bell by Robert's bed rang, and Hester straightened her ap.r.o.n and knocked on the door.

”Come in,” Robert replied.

She pushed the door wide.

”Would you be good enough to ask the footman to a.s.sist me downstairs, Hester?” Robert said, biting his lip and looking at her self-consciously, fear and self-mockery in his eyes. ”Miss Stanhope wishes me to show her the garden.”

Hester had promised Rathbone she would learn everything she could about Zorah and Gisela, or anything else which might help him. She was moved by curiosity to know what truth lay behind such wild charges, what emotions drove those two so different women and the prince who was between them. But far more urgently than that, she was afraid for Rathbone. He had undertaken the case in good conscience, only later to discover that the physical facts made it impossible Gisela could be guilty. There was no other possible defense for Zorah's behavior. Now the height of his career, which he had so recently achieved, looked like being short-lived and ending in disaster. Regardless of public opinion, his peers would not excuse him for such a breaking of ranks as to attack a foreign royal family with a charge he could not substantiate.

Zorah Rostova was a woman they would not ever forgive. She had defied all the rules. There was no way back for her, or for those who allied themselves with her...unless she could be proved innocent-in intent, if not in fact.

It was not easy to choose a time when anyone would be receptive to a conversation about Zorah. Robert's tragedy overshadowed anything else. Hester found herself growing desperate. Rathbone was almost always on her mind, and the urgency of the case became greater with every day that pa.s.sed. The trial was set for late October, less than two weeks away.

She was obliged to contrive a discussion, feeling awkward and sinkingly aware that she might, by clumsiness, make future questions impossible. Dagmar was sitting by the open window in the afternoon light, idly mending a piece of lace on the neck of a blouse. She did so only to keep her fingers busy. Hester sat a little distance from her, sewing in her hand also, one of Robert's nights.h.i.+rts that needed repair where the sleeve was coming away from the armhole. She threaded a needle and put on her thimble and began to st.i.tch.

She could not afford to hesitate any longer. ”Will you go to the trial?”

Dagmar looked up, surprised.

”Trial? Oh, you mean Zorah Rostova? I hadn't thought of it.” She glanced out of the window to where Robert was sitting in the garden in a wheelchair Bernd had purchased. He was reading. Victoria had not come, so he was alone. ”I wonder if he's cold,” she said anxiously.

”If he is, he has a rug,” Hester replied, biting back her irritation. ”And the chair moves really quite well. Please forgive me for saying so, but he will be better if you allow him to do things for himself. If you treat him as if he were helpless, then he will become helpless.”

Dagmar smiled ruefully. ”Yes. I'm sorry. Of course he will. You must think me very foolish.”

”Not at all,” Hester replied honestly. ”Just hurt and not sure how best to help. I imagine the Baron will go?”

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