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tlb
Fleet Admiral
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Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2012 11:34 am
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cthia wrote:Please! Stop putting words in my mouth, a constant habit of yours. I never said the maid was the leak.
Show me textev where Emily silenced the maid, or put her in her place. I may have missed it, and I'd really like to reread it, if it exists.
You are possibly correct, the original quote (which I will include in a bit) said "domestic help". I never intend to put words in your mouth, I will always put quotes around what you write. My intention has always been to put down what I understand you to state, so people will see the inspiration for my remarks; summarizing it solely for the sake of brevity. I am always positive that if I misconstrue your words, you will not hesitate to correct me. For instance I did not hesitate to correct you for the misunderstandings in the following: cthia wrote:You can't have meant this as it reads. You mean to say that Emily, or any spouse, should be amenable to bringing someone else into the marriage simply because it's presented to them by some clergymen in some church on some other planet? My God, man, what are you saying? I certainly didn't know you were so religious. Cool.
At any rate, I'm sure there would be lots of people, who would object if even God himself came down and decreed it. Like he did with the Virgin Mary.
As promised here is that earlier quote. cthia wrote:Oh really? Isn't Emily's domestic help, who has known and been by her side for decades also part of the characters? Didn't they themselves also have a problem with it?
Which implies that Emily wasn't exactly jumping up and down about the whole sordid mess in their presence, now was she?
"Oh wow, my husband is going to bring another woman into our marriage, even though I didn't sign up for this years ago. But I think that's wonderful! Don't you too, guys?"
She wasn't exactly dancing a jig around her domestic help, Trusted help that becomes very close to you after awhile. And in her crippled condition, I'm willing to bet the farm that she would dance every opportunity she'd get.
When going through the text this afternoon, I found that we were both wrong. It was not the servants that spread rumors; instead it was their political enemies inventing a scandal. The unhappy servants came later after the smear campaign and before Hamish and Honor were lovers, so long before the marriage. Now comes the wall of text: In Enemy Hands, chapter 7 wrote:He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. He loved his wife. He'd loved her since the day he met her, and he would love her till the day he died, and she knew it. But she also knew, although they'd never discussed it, that he'd had more than one affair since the freak accident put her in her life-support chair. There was no way—could never be one, ever again—the two of them could enjoy a physical relationship. Both of them knew that, and so Emily looked the other way whenever one of his rare affairs blossomed. She knew they were only temporary, that his occasional lovers were all women he liked and trusted but did not love—not as he loved and would always love her. She was the one to whom he always returned, for they shared everything but the one form of intimacy they had lost forever. He knew that it hurt her, less because he was being "unfaithful" than because it reminded her of what she'd lost, and that his "infidelity" would cause her great pain if it ever became public, and so he was always circumspect . . . and always careful to avoid any relationship which could ever become more than friendship.
Echoes of Honor, chapter 19 wrote:And he'd never run away from her again. There had been a handful of other women over the last forty-odd years. He and Emily were both from aristocratic families and Manticore, the most cosmopolitan of the Star Kingdom's planets, with mores and concepts quite different from those of frontier Gryphon or straitlaced Sphinx. The Star Kingdom had its licensed professional courtesans, but ninety percent of them were to be found on the capital planet, and White Haven had availed himself of their services upon occasion. Emily knew that, just as she knew that all of them had been women he liked and respected but did not love. Not as he loved her. After all these years, it was she with whom he still shared everything except the physical intimacy which they had lost forever. His brief affairs hurt her, he knew—not because she felt betrayed, but because it reminded her of what had been taken from them—and because of that, he was always discreet. He would never let them become public knowledge, never allow even the hint of a possible scandal to expose her to potential humiliation. But he never tried to hide the truth from her, for he owed her honesty, and "crippled" or not, she remained one of the strongest people he had ever known . . . and the only woman he loved or had ever loved.
Until now. Until Honor Harrington. Until in some inexplicable fashion, without his ever realizing it, professional respect and admiration had changed somehow, crept inside his guard and ambushed him. However he'd given himself away, revealed at least a little of what he felt, he would never, ever have done anything more than that. But he couldn't lie to himself now that she was dead, and what he'd felt for her had been nothing at all like his friendship for Theodosia or the discreet professionals with whom he'd dealt over the years.
No, it had been far worse than that. It had been as deep and intense—and as sudden—as what he'd first felt for Emily all those decades ago. And so, in a macabre sort of way which no one else in the entire universe would ever realize, he'd betrayed both of the women he'd loved. Whatever he'd felt for Honor hadn't changed the way he felt about Emily; it had been separate from Emily, or perhaps in addition to his love for his wife. Yet letting himself feel it had still been a betrayal that, in many ways, was far, far darker than his affair with Theodosia had ever been. And by letting some hint of his feelings slip, he had driven Honor off to die.
He'd never meant to do either of those things, and even now, he hadn't committed a single intentional act to betray either of them. Indeed, the rest of the universe probably wouldn't even consider that he had, for nothing had ever happened between him and Honor, after all. But he knew, and it wounded him deep inside, where his concept of himself lived, in a way his affair with Theodosia never had, for this time he had no excuse. No fresh and bleeding wound which demanded healing. There was only the bewildering knowledge that somehow, without ever meaning to, he had found himself desperately in love with two totally different yet equally magnificent women . . . and that one of them was forever an invalid and the other was dead.
War of Honor, chapter 6 wrote:"It'll be a cold day in Hell first!" White Haven snarled, but Honor felt her belly tighten as the emotions behind William's blue eyes washed through her.
"Drop the shoe, Willie," she told him quietly, and he sighed.
"Tomorrow morning," he told her in a flattened voice, "Solomon Hayes' column will carry a report that you and Hamish are lovers."
Honor felt the blood drain from her face, but even her own shock paled beside the sudden, white-hot spike of fury she tasted from White Haven. William lacked her own empathic sense, but he didn't need it, and his face was a mask and his voice flatter than ever as he continued.
"You both know how Hayes works. He won't come right out and say so unequivocally or name names to support his allegations, but the message will be completely clear. He's going to suggest that you've been lovers for over two T-years now . . . and High Ridge's pet columnists are already drafting op-ed pieces designed to fan the flames. That's apparently the real reason High Ridge rescheduled the opening debate in the Lords—to give the lynch mob time to get a good start. They'll be careful to project an image of fair-mindedness and insist your personal lives should have absolutely no bearing on matters of public policy, but they know exactly how crippling such charges will be to both of you. And the public's admiration for you both, as individuals as well as naval heroes, will make the backlash even worse, especially since there won't be any way to disprove Hayes' story."
He barked a laugh which contained no humor at all.
"At best," he went on harshly, "it will be your word against his . . . and a carefully orchestrated background chorus designed to drown out anything you say. And to be honest, the two of you have spent so much time together, both publicly and in private, and worked so closely with one another that it's going to be impossible to refute the inevitable allegations that you obviously had ample opportunity for it!"
"Refute?" White Haven sounded strangled, but Honor could only sit in paralyzed shock. Behind her, she heard the soft thud as Nimitz leapt from his perch to her desk. She felt the 'cat reaching out to her, felt him trying to insert himself between her and her pain as he'd done so often before, even before he vaulted over her shoulder and landed in her lap. She scooped him into her arms without even turning her chair and held him tightly, pressing her face into his silky fur while he crooned to her, but this time no one could protect her from the pain. Not even Nimitz.
For the most part, Manticoran social mores were far more relaxed than those of Grayson. Indeed, those of the capital planet itself were more liberal than those of Honor's native Sphinx. Normally, the idea that an affair between two consenting adults was the business of anyone besides the two adults concerned would have been laughable. Normally.
But not in this case. Not for Steadholder Harrington, who also had to concern herself with the sensibilities of her Grayson subjects and how Grayson public opinion would rebound against her. And through her, against Protector Benjamin and his beleaguered efforts to maintain Grayson's military preparedness in the face of the Star Kingdom's effective abandonment of the Manticoran Alliance. Her earlier relationship with Paul had been hard enough for Grayson to swallow, but at least if they'd never married, neither of them had been married to someone else, either.
White Haven was, and that was the second prong of the threat, for Lady Emily Alexander, Countess White Haven, was one of the most beloved public figures in the entire Star Kingdom.
Once one of Manticore's most beautiful and talented HD actresses, she'd been confined to a life support chair following an air car accident since before Honor's third standard birthday, yet Emily Alexander had refused to let her life end. The accident had crippled her physically, but the damage hadn't affected the brilliance of mind and strength of will which had propelled her to the very top of her vocation. The surgeons had managed to salvage enough of her motor control centers to give her almost full use of one hand and arm and almost normal speech, although the regulation of her involuntary muscles depended entirely upon her life support chair. It wasn't much. Indeed, it was pathetically little, but small as it was, she had made it enough.
Unable to take the stage again, she'd become a producer and writer, a poet who was also a brilliant historian and the semi-official biographer of the House of Winton. And along with her stature as the great tragic heroine of Manticore, the beloved example who challenged and inspired an entire kingdom with the proof of how much could be overcome by sheer, dauntless courage, had come the great romantic story of her marriage to Hamish Alexander. Of the devotion and love which had survived almost six T-decades of confinement to her chair. Many men would have sought the dissolution of their marriages, however gently and on however generous terms, so that they could remarry, but Hamish had rejected any suggestion that he might have done so.
There'd been whispers of occasional discreet liaisons between him and registered courtesans, over the years, but such relationships were fully accepted—even regarded as therapeutic—on Manticore. Gryphon and Sphinx were less convinced of that, each for its own reasons, but the capital planet was far more . . . sophisticated in that regard.
Yet there was a universe of difference between occasionally patronizing a registered professional courtesan, particularly when one's spouse was a complete invalid, and entering upon an affair with a nonprofessional. And that was especially true for Hamish and Emily Alexander, who were Second Reformation Roman Catholics and who'd married monogamously, for better or for worse, until death parted them. Both of them took their marriage vows seriously, and even if they hadn't, the depth of Hamish Alexander's love for his wife was something not even his most bitter personal or political enemy would have dared to doubt.
Until now. Until Honor.
She raised her face from Nimitz's fur and stared at William, unable even to look at Hamish, and her pain only grew as she realized at last what William had been thinking. He'd been wondering if the story Hayes was about to publish might be true, and she knew why.
Because it should have been. Because if she'd had the courage to tell Hamish what she felt, they would have become lovers. Whether that would have constituted a betrayal in Lady Emily's eyes or not, Honor didn't know . . . and it wouldn't have mattered. And that, she realized, was the true reason she'd politely declined every invitation to visit the Alexander family seat at White Haven, despite the closeness of their working political relationship. Because that was Emily's place, the home she never left. The place where she belonged with Hamish, and which Honor's very presence would somehow have violated. And because as long as she'd never herself met Emily, Honor could pretend she had never transgressed against her, even in her heart of hearts.
War of Honor, chapter 11 wrote:"I come bearing an invitation," he said, much more lightly than he felt. Nimitz and Samantha arrived while he was speaking, and Honor bent to scoop Nimitz up without ever taking her eyes from White Haven's face. She straightened, cradling the 'cat in her arms.
"An invitation?" she repeated, and he felt a fresh flicker of pain at the wariness in her voice.
"Not from me," he hastened to reassure her, and then chuckled humorlessly. "The last thing you and I need right now is to give the scandalmongers more ammunition!"
"True," she agreed, and smiled with a flash of what might have been genuine amusement. But the smile disappeared almost as quickly as it had come, and she cocked her head at him. "If not from you, then from whom?" she asked, and he drew a deep breath.
"From my wife," he said very, very softly.
Honor never moved, yet in that instant it was as if he could feel her emotions, sense the way she flinched inside as if from an unexpected blow. She stared at him, and he wanted to reach out and take her in his arms. But he couldn't, of course.
"I know it sounds bizarre," he went on, instead, "but I promise I haven't lost my mind. In fact, the invitation was Emily's idea. Very few people realize it, but the truth is that she's probably even better at picking political problems apart and finding answers than Willie is. And right this minute, Honor, you and I need all the help we can get. She knows that . . . and she wants to offer it."
War of Honor, Chapter 12 wrote:The door opened at their approach, and a man who radiated a subtle kinship to James MacGuiness looked out with a small bow of greeting.
"Welcome home, My Lord," he said to White Haven.
"Thank you, Nico." White Haven acknowledged his greeting with a smile. "This is Duchess Harrington. Is Lady Emily in the atrium?"
"She is, My Lord," Nico replied, and bestowed another, more formal bow on Honor. His emotions were complex, compounded of his deep loyalty to the Alexander family, and to Hamish and Emily Alexander in particular, and an awareness that there was no truth to the vicious stories about Hamish and Honor. She tasted his sympathy for her, but there was also a sharp edge of resentment. Not for anything she'd done, but for the pain others had brought to people for whom he cared, using her as the weapon.
"Welcome to White Haven, Your Grace," he said, and to his credit, not a trace of his ambivalence at seeing her there colored his voice or his manner.
"Thank you," she said, smiling at him as warmly as her emotionally battered state allowed.
"Should I announce you to Her Ladyship, My Lord?" Nico asked the earl.
"No, thank you. She's . . . expecting us. We'll find our own way, but ask Cook to put together a light supper for three, please. No, make that for five," he corrected, nodding at the two treecats. "And make sure there's plenty of celery."
*** <snip> ***
"Emily," White Haven's deep voice was deeper even than usual, "allow me to introduce Duchess Harrington."
"Welcome to White Haven, Your Grace." The voice was a husky shadow of the warm, almost purring contralto which had reached out to so many HD viewers, but it retained more than a ghost of its old power. The countess held out one delicate hand—the only one she could move, Honor realized, and stepped forward to take it.
"Thank you, Lady White Haven," she said softly, and her thanks were deep-felt and genuine, for there was no anger, no hatred in Lady Emily's greeting. Sadness, yes—a vast, bottomless sorrow, and a weariness which almost matched Honor's own. But not anger. Not at Honor. There was anger, a deep, seething rage, but it was directed at another target. At the men and women who had callously used her, just as surely as they'd used Honor or Hamish, for political advantage.
"You're not as tall as I expected from the talk show circuit and news reports," Lady Emily observed, with a faint smile. "I expected you to be at least three meters tall, and here you are, scarcely two and a half."
"I think we all look taller on HD, Your Grace."
"So we do." Lady Emily's smile grew broader. "I always did, at any rate," she went on, and her tone and emotions alike were barren of any self-pity for those vanished days. She cocked her head—the only thing, besides her right arm, that she could move—and gazed up at Honor thoughtfully.
"You look as if this has been even uglier for you than I was afraid it had," she said calmly. "I regret that, just as I regret that you and I must meet under these circumstances. But the more I've thought about it, the more it's become clear to me that it's essential for the three of us to decide how we will all respond to these . . . people."
Honor looked down into those brilliantly green, understanding eyes, and felt something deep within her begin to yield as she tasted the genuine compassion at Emily Alexander's core. There was resentment, as well. There had to be, for however special Lady Emily might be, she remained a human being, and no mere mortal confined forever to a life support chair could look at Honor, standing beside her husband, and not resent the younger woman's physical health and vitality. Yet that resentment was only a part of what she felt when she looked at Honor, and her understanding, her refusal to prejudge or to condemn, reached out to her guest like a comforting embrace.
*** <snip> ***
"I'd hoped you would, just as I'd hoped you'd come," Emily continued. "I meant it when I said I regret meeting under these circumstances, but I've been curious about you for years now. So in a way, I'm happy to finally meet you, although I could certainly wish it hadn't come about this way."
She paused for a moment, then gave her head a small toss and continued more briskly.
"You and Hamish—and I—have been made the victims of a concerted, vicious attack. One that depends for success on innuendo and hypocrisy in the service of the belief that the end justifies any means whatsoever. And ugly as it may be, and for all the potential for public opinion to recoil on the accusers in disgust, it's unfortunately effective. Because it relies on the knife in the back rather than open confrontation, it can never be answered by reasoned argument or proof of innocence, however genuine and however convincingly presented. Even if you and Hamish were having an affair, which I don't for a moment believe you are, it ought to be your business. And mine, perhaps, but no one else's. Yet even though almost anyone in the Star Kingdom would agree with that statement in the abstract, by now it's completely useless as a defense. You realize that, don't you?"
"Yes." Honor nodded again, stroking Nimitz's silky pelt.
"I don't know that there is a defense, really," Emily said frankly. "It's always harder to prove a negative, and the more you two or your surrogates deny the lies being told about you, the more a certain portion of the electorate will believe them. Worse, all of the Government newsfaxes and commentators are beginning to take it as a given that you're guilty as charged. Very soon now, they won't even bother to argue the case any longer. The assumption of guilt will simply be there, in everything they write or say, and the taint will cling despite anything you can do."
Honor felt her shoulders hunching once more as Emily calmly spelled out what she'd already realized for herself.
"The most damning point of their 'indictment'—and the one I find the most personally infuriating—is the allegation that you and Hamish have betrayed me," Emily continued, and although her voice remained as level and thoughtful as before, she couldn't hide her own seething anger. It was an anger Honor understood only too well, the fury of someone who knew she had been cynically used as a weapon against all she believed in and stood for.
"If they choose to involve me in their games and machinations," Emily told her, "then I think it's only fitting that I respond. I realize neither you nor Hamish have asked me to become involved. I even understand why."
She looked very steadily into Honor's eyes for a moment, her own eyes very dark and still, and Honor felt the fusion of fury and compassion at her core.
"To an extent, Honor, I was willing to stay out of the fray if that was what the two of you wished. In part, I'm ashamed to admit, because I was . . . afraid to do otherwise. Or perhaps not afraid. Perhaps I was simply too tired. My health has been particularly poor for the past year or so, which is undoubtedly one reason Hamish has tried so hard to keep me out of this. And that ill-health may also explain why something inside me quailed every time I thought about becoming involved, anyway. And there may have been . . . other reasons."
Again, their eyes met, and again Honor felt the complex freight of emotions hanging between them.
"But that was cowardice on my part," Lady Emily continued quietly. "An abandonment of my own responsibility to stand and fight against anyone who wants to destroy my life. And certainly of my responsibility to prevent moral pygmies with the ideology and ethics of back-alley rats from raping the political processes of the Star Kingdom."
She paused for a moment, jaw clamped, and this time Honor tasted something else in her emotions. A scathing self-condemnation. Anger at herself for having evaded her obligations. And not, Honor realized, solely because of weariness or ill health—or even Hamish's desire to shield her. This was a woman who had looked into her mirror and faced her own resentment, her sense of hurt and shame, and her perfectly natural anger at the younger woman whose name had been so publicly linked with her husband's. She'd faced those things and overcome them, yet a part of her could not forgive herself for taking so long to do it.
"One reason I asked Hamish to invite you here," Lady Emily told her unflinchingly, "was to tell you that whatever he—or you—may wish, this is not simply your fight. It's also mine, and I intend to take the battle to the enemy. These . . . people have seen fit to drag me and people I care about into their tawdry, vicious games, and I won't have it."
There was, Honor reflected, something frightening about the complete calm with which Lady Emily delivered that final sentence.
"The only possible reply I can see," White Haven's wife continued "is to turn the hook for their entire attack against them. Not to mount a defense so much as to take the war to them, for a change."
Honor sat up straighter on the bench, leaning forward with the first faint flickers of hope as she tasted Emily's resolution.
"I don't wish to sound vain," the countess said, "but it would be foolish for me to pretend not to know that, like you and Hamish, although for different reasons, I enjoy a unique status with the Manticoran public. I've seen enough of you on HD, and heard enough about you from others, to know you sometimes find your public stature more than a little embarrassing and exaggerated. Mine often strikes me the same way, but it exists, and it's the reason High Ridge and his flunkies have been able to attack you and Hamish so effectively.
"But the key to their entire position is to portray me as a 'wronged woman' as the result of your alleged actions. The public's anger has been generated not because you and Hamish might have had an affair, but because Hamish and I married in the Church, in a sacrament we've never renounced or altered which pledged us to honor a monogamous marriage. And because you're a naval officer, not a registered courtesan. If you were an RC, the public might resent any relationship between you and Hamish on my behalf, but no one would consider that either of you had 'betrayed' me or our marriage. But you aren't an RC, and that lets them portray any affair between the two of you as a direct attack upon me. You and he have already issued statements of denial, and you were wise to let those initial statements stand without the sort of repeated denials which so many people would consider little more than sure proof of guilt. You were also wise to avoid the rather disgusting tactic of claiming that even if you'd been guilty, 'everyone' does it. I know some of your advisors must have suggested that approach as a way to brush off the seriousness of your alleged offense, but any move in that direction would have been tantamount to admitting that the charges were justified. Yet even though you've issued your denials with dignity and as calmly and effectively as you possibly could have, they haven't been enough. So I believe it's time to move to the next level of counterattack."
"Counterattack?" Honor asked.
"Precisely." Emily nodded firmly. "As you may know, I virtually never leave White Haven these days. I doubt that I've been off the grounds more than three times in the last T-year, because I love it here. And, frankly, because I find the rest of the world entirely too fatiguing.
"But that's about to change. The Government hacks who have been so busily raping you and Hamish in their columns have used me to do it. So I've already informed Willie that I'll be in Landing next week. I'll be staying at our house in the capital for a month or two, and I shall be entertaining for the first time in decades, albeit on a small scale. And I will make it my personal business to be certain everyone knows that I know there isn't a shred of truth to the allegations that you and Hamish have ever slept together. I'll also make it my business to inform anyone who asks—and, for that matter, anyone who doesn't ask—that I consider you a personal friend in my own right and a close political colleague of my husband. I imagine it will become at least a little more difficult for those assassins to spread their poison if the 'wronged woman' announces to the entire galaxy that she isn't wronged and never has been."
War of Honor, chapter 14 wrote:"Fortunately, White Haven isn't quite that tough a nut. He maintains excellent security on the sensitive materials he receives as a member of the Naval Affairs Committee, and his people are almost as loyal as Harrington's. But they're not as security conscious about, ah . . . household matters as hers are. I wasn't able to put anyone actually inside his or his wife's quarters, but I did manage to get a few listening devices into the servant's quarters. And some of his people let much more slip than they thought they did when someone asked them the right questions."
High Ridge and Janacek looked uncomfortable at her deliberate reminder of precisely what it was she did for them. The calm, matter-of-fact way she discussed spying on their political opponents made both of them uneasy, if only because of their awareness of the consequences if they were caught at it. Such privacy violations were illegal for anyone, but the fines and even jail time violators could draw would have been minor considerations beside the devastating public opinion damage awaiting any politician who got caught actually bugging his opponents. And what would have been bad enough for any political figure would be even worse for one of the leaders of the current Government, which was supposed to be in charge of stopping anyone from committing such acts.
However uncomfortable the two Conservatives might have been, Houseman seemed unconcerned, almost as if he were oblivious to any reason why the countess' actions could be considered the least bit improper. Perhaps, High Ridge thought sardonically, because of the way the towering nobility of his intentions justified any act he might choose to commit in order to further them. As for Descroix, she actually smiled as if she thought the entire thing was some huge, slightly off-color joke.
Lady North Hollow let the silence linger just long enough to make her point. Then, having reminded them of the importance of ensuring the competence of whoever did their dirty work for them, she continued.
"The really ironic thing about it all," she told her audience, "is how close we came to telling the truth about both of them."
High Ridge and Janacek looked at each other in obvious surprise, and she smiled.
"Oh, there's absolutely no evidence that they were ever actually lovers," she assured them. "But apparently it's not for lack of temptation. According to some of the White Haven retainers, Harrington and White Haven are pining over each other like a pair of love-sick teenagers. They may be hiding it from the public—so far—but they're suffering in truly appallingly noble silence."
"Really?" Descroix cocked her head, her eyes calculating. "Are you sure about that, Georgia? I mean, they do spend an inordinate amount of time together. That was what made our original strategy workable. But are you seriously suggesting that there's truly something there?"
"That's what the evidence seems to indicate," the countess replied. "Some of the White Haven servants are quite bitter about it, actually. Apparently their loyalty to Lady White Haven is outraged by the thought that Harrington might be scheming to supplant her. To be honest, that outrage was probably enhanced by our media campaign, and it seems to have faded back somewhat in the last few weeks. But what gave it its original legs was the fact that most of them had already come to the conclusion that whatever Harrington thought, White Haven had been busy falling in love with her for months, if not years. I realize that anything they may have said to my investigators constitutes hearsay evidence, at best, but when it comes right down to it, the servants usually know more about what's going on in any household than their masters do. Besides, the handful of . . . technical assets I managed to get inside White Haven's household pretty much confirm their testimony."
War of Honor, chapter 59 wrote:"Oh, yes." Emily laughed quietly. "Fortunately, I only had to learn how to read her signs. She understood me just fine when I spoke to her, which was a good thing, since it would be just a little difficult to sign with only one hand. But poor Hamish has been so busy, what with one thing and another, that Samantha and I have had an opportunity for some uninterrupted 'girl talk' behind his back. It's amazing what . . . acute observations she had to make about him."
" 'Observations,' is it?" Hamish regarded her suspiciously.
"No one's telling tales out of school, dear," Emily reassured him. "On the other hand, Samantha did have several interesting pithy observations on the thickheadedness of humans in general."
"What sort of observations?" Honor asked.
"Largely on the inevitable differences between a race of empathic telepaths and a race which is 'mind-blind,' " Emily replied in a voice which was suddenly considerably more serious. "In fact," she went on quietly, "one of her most telling comments, I thought, was that by treecat standards, it's insane for two people not to admit what they feel for one another."
Honor froze in her chair, stunned by the totally unanticipated direction Emily had abruptly taken the conversation. She wanted to dart a glance at Hamish, but she couldn't. All she could do was stare at Emily.
"The societies are quite different, of course," Emily continued, "so it's inevitable that there shouldn't be a direct point-to-point correspondence between them. But the more she and I spoke about it, the more I came to see why a race of empaths would feel that way. They're right, you know. It's worse than just senseless for two people who love each other deeply, and who have no desire or intention to hurt anyone else, to condemn themselves to so much suffering and such bitter unhappiness just because two-leg society is mind-blind. That's not just foolish, it's insane. And the fact that the two people involved are doing it to themselves because they're such splendid and responsible human beings that they would rather suffer themselves than risk the possibility of hurting someone else doesn't make it any less insane. It may make them both people to be deeply admired . . . and trusted. But if they really thought about it, perhaps they would realize that the person whose pain they're trying to spare knows how much pain they're causing themselves. And perhaps, you know, she wouldn't want them to be hurt any more than they want her to be. And so, if they were treecats instead of humans, all three of them would know what each of them felt. And that no one was betraying anyone by being a loving, caring individual . . . and expressing that love."
She sat there in her life support chair, looking at Honor and Hamish with a small, gentle smile, and then she waved her right hand in that same shrug-equivalent gesture.
"I've given it quite a lot of thought, you know," she said, "and I've come to the conclusion, my dears, that treecats are really most remarkably sane individuals. I suspect that if you spent some time talking with them, or possibly even with each other, you might come to the same conclusion."
She smiled at them again, and then her life support chair moved silently back from the table.
"You might want to think about that," she told them as her chair floated towards the door. "But for now, I'm going to bed."
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