William Monk 03 - Defend and Betray

very firmly in the gauntlet, and as Major Tiplady said, the force very great indeed. “Perhaps he was. I had never met him, but his sister is tall, although she is very slight. Maybe he was of a bigger build. He was a soldier.”
    Major Tiplady’s eyebrows shot up. “Was he?”
    “Yes. A general, I believe.”
    The major’s face twitched with an amusement he found extreme difficulty in concealing, although he was perfectly aware of its unsuitability. He had recently developed a sense of the absurd which alarmed him. He thought it was a result of lying in bed with little to do but read, and too much company of a woman.
    “How very unfortunate,” he said, staring at the ceiling. “I hope they do not put on his epitaph that he was finally killed by impaling himself upon a weapon held by an empty suit of armor. It does seem an anticlimax to an outstanding military career, and to smack of the ridiculous. And a general too!”
    “Seems not at all unlikely for a general to me,” Hester said tartly, remembering some of the fiascoes of the Crimean War, such as the Battle of the Alma, where men were ordered first one way and then the other, and were finally caught in the river, hundreds dying unnecessarily; not to mention Balaclava, where the Light Brigade, the flower of the English cavalry, had charged into the mouths of the Russian guns and been mown down like grass. That was a nightmare of blood and slaughter she would never forget, nor the succeeding days and nights of sleepless labor, helplessness and pain.
    Suddenly Thaddeus Carlyon’s death seemed sadder, more real, and at the same time far less important.
    She turned back to Major Tiplady and began straightening the blanket over his legs. He was about to protest, then he recognized the quite different quality in her expression and submitted wordlessly. She had changed from a pleasant and efficient young woman, whom he liked, into the army nurse she used to be such a short time since, seeing death every day and hideously aware of the magnitude and the futility of it.
    “You said he was a general.” He watched her with a pucker between his brows. “What was his name?”
    “Carlyon,” she replied, tucking in the ends of the blanket firmly. “Thaddeus Carlyon.”
    “Indian Army?” he asked, then before she could reply, “Heard of a Carlyon out there, stiff sort of fellow, but very much admired by his men. Fine reputation, never backed down in the face of the enemy. Not all that fond of generals myself, but pity he should die like that.”
    “It was quick,” she said with a grimace. Then for several moments she busied herself around the room, doing largely unnecessary things, but the movement was automatic, as if remaining still would have been an imprisonment.
    Finally the tea and crumpets came. Biting into the crisp, hot dough and trying to stop the butter from running down her chin, she relaxed and returned to the present.
    She smiled at him.
    “Would you like a game of chess?” she offered. She wasexactly skilled enough to give him a good game without beating him.
    “Oh I would,” he said happily. “Indeed I would.”
    Hester spent her free time for the next several days in pursuing possible opportunities for Edith Sobell, as she had promised. She did not think nursing offered any openings Edith would find either satisfying or indeed available to her. It was regarded as a trade rather than a profession, and most of the men and women employed in it were of a social class and an education, or lack of it, which resulted in their being regarded with scant respect, and paid accordingly. Those who had been with Miss Nightingale, now a national heroine only a little less admired than the Queen, were viewed differently, but it was too late for Edith to qualify for that distinction. And even though Hester herself most definitely did qualify, she was finding employment hard enough, and her opinions little valued.
    But there were other fields, especially for someone like Edith, who was intelligent and well-read, not only in English literature but also in French. There might well be some gentleman who required a librarian or an assistant to research for him whatever subject held his interest. People were always writing treatises or monographs, and many needed an assistant who would perform the labor necessary to translate their ideas into a literary form.
    Most women who wished a lady companion were intolerably difficult and really only wanted a dependent