“No-no we didn’t,” Hester agreed quickly, startled by Oonagh’s perception. In fact, now (hat she sat here in this quiet dining room with its polished table and handsome carved sideboard, she realized that the trust and responsibility, and the power to act for herself, were two of the aspects of the Crimea that she missed the most profoundly. Now so many of her decisions were trivial.

It must be even more so for a woman like Oonagh Mclvor, whose responsibilities were largely domestic. What should Cook serve for dinner? How should she resolve the squabble between the kitchen maid and the laundry maid? Should she invite so-and-so to dine this week with the Smiths-or next week with the Joneses? Should she wear green on Sunday, or blue? Looking at the intelligence and the resolve in Oonagh’s features, Hester saw that she was not a woman to waste her energy on such things, which mattered not in the slightest, even today, never mind in the course of one’s life. Was it envy she could hear in the curious timbre of Oonagh’s voice?

“You have a remarkable understanding,” she replied aloud, meeting Oonagh’s steady gaze. “I don’t think I had even phrased it to myself so well. I confess that at times I have found myself almost suffocated by the necessity of obedience, when I had been used to action, simply because there was no one else to turn to and the urgency of the situation did not allow us to delay.”

Deirdra was watching her closely, her face quickened with interest, her tea forgotten.

Oonagh smiled as if the answer in some way pleased her.

“You must have seen much waste, and a fearful amount of pain,” she observed. “Of course there will always be deaths, when one is occupied with medicine, but there can be nothing like the battlefield in a hospital. That aspect of it must be a relief to you. Does one get hardened to seeing so much death?”