When Richard had seen Esther standing at the window, her shoulders hunched over the letter, he’d felt compelled to go to her. She looked like a frail bloom, her head angled toward the paper, tendrils of hair curling about her slender neck, and he was helpless in the face of her distress. He knew he was in grave danger of caring too deeply for her.
Their hour together had become the high point in his day and he found himself looking for ways to prolong the time. Esther was well read, well educated, and possessed a lively mind. In addition, her keen sense of the absurd, together with an underpinning kindness that showed itself more and more often, made her only more attractive to him. They talked of books, music, of poetry—she favored the metaphysical poets of the seventeenth century, he those of the First World War: Sassoon, Thomas, and Brooke—of philosophy and astronomy, of politics, history, and economics.
“But surely you can see that Churchill is a brutal imperialist?” she railed on more than one occasion. “As evidenced by his appalling treatment of the indigenous Kenyans?”
He tried to argue for the prime minister’s nobler virtues and strong leadership, his stance against Nazi Germany, all of which she only reluctantly acceded to.
He loved that she wasn’t afraid to disagree with him, but that despite their differences, they saw the world almost through the same eyes, held the same values dear.
He also spoke to her of his ambitions. “I am writing a paper on new and individualized treatments for patients, based on my experiences at Northfield, and also here. I hope to change the management of psychiatric cases, especially depression, to break new ground,” he confided.
“For certainly there are better means than electric shock treatment or, God help us, lobotomy,” she said with a shiver. “That does indeed sound like a worthy endeavor.”
“I confess I have little spare time to work on it, but I am determined to complete it. It could help change the course of so many lives. Shining a light on better treatment, to help those poor souls who have experienced such horrors defending king and country, is the least I can do. I didn’t go to war. I suppose this is my way of making amends.”
“Making amends? Whatever for? No one thinks less of you because you did not fight, if that’s what you mean. No one that matters anyway.”
He smiled at the thought that she was counseling him.
“Tell me, what decided you upon this course of medicine?” she had asked one day. He gave her a brief sketch of his mother and she had looked at him with such sympathy that he felt afresh the wound of that long-ago summer. Had he been given cause to describe the perfect woman, he would not have imagined someone quite like Esther, but now that he knew her, no one else would ever come close. It was as subtle and as simple as the way she held herself, the sideways sweep of her gaze when something amused her, the low timbre of her voice that made him want to lean forward and listen even more closely to what she was saying. It was the way she entered a room, the light in her eyes as if she was about to recount something wonderful that she’d saved just for him. That she was the wife of an old school chum caused him even more anguish than the fact that she was his patient—for she would not be his patient forever, but she would always be married to someone else.
He found himself to be at the mercy of his own desires in a way that he had never before experienced. It disrupted his sleep, made him careless of the others. Despite the longing that plagued him day and night, he vowed that she should never know of his feelings. He owed that to her as her doctor.
* * *
It was ridiculous to hope, but when she called him by his Christian name before Christmas dinner it was as though she too acknowledged their deepening friendship. Such a small gesture meant everything.
The rest of that day passed in a blur for Richard. After the austerity of prior years the table almost bowed with the weight of food upon it and everyone ate heartily. Mrs. Biggs had boiled up a pudding, sweetened with honey and dried fruit, and he held it aloft as, doused in liquor, blue flames danced about its surface.
“There’s a thruppenny bit in there for one lucky lad,” said Mrs. Biggs, who had downed several more sherries by this point.
“Or lass,” said Robbie, angling his spoon at Esther.
Try as he might, Richard could not keep his eyes from returning to Esther, caring less as the evening wore on and the level in the wine bottles grew lower, that anyone might notice. He watched the way her face glowed in the candlelight; how gentle she was with Robbie and his doll. As they ate the pudding, he saw her take a spoonful and a puzzled look appeared on her face. She raised her napkin to her lips and delicately spat into it and he worried for a moment that something was wrong.
“It appears I am the lucky one in this instance,” she said, holding a coin up for all to see.
He caught a split-second look of disdain on Jean’s face, as if she’d just at that moment thought of something unpleasant. He couldn’t be certain, but it looked very much like jealousy. He dismissed the notion. Jean was an excellent nurse, even if she was at times a little humorless.
He returned his attention to Esther, who was beaming at them all, delighted by her good fortune. He hoped the coming year would prove luckier for her than the current one had—she, as much as any of the men under his care, deserved it.