Finally she was quiet enough for Judith to be able to put her to bed. in a sleepy, childlike voice she asked for me to stay, and so I stayed with her, kneeling by her bedside and watching her fall asleep. From time to time a shiver disturbed her slumber and a look of fear came on her sleeping face; when this happened I smoothed her hair until her eyelids settled back into peace.
When was it that my father had consoled me like this? An incident rose out of the depths of my memory. I must have been twelve or so. It was Sunday; Father and I were eating sandwiches by the river when twins appeared. Two blond girls with their blond parents, day-trippers come to admire the architecture and enjoy the sunshine. Everyone noticed them; they must have been used to the stares of strangers. But not mine. I saw them and my heart leaped. It was like looking into a mirror and seeing myself complete. With what ardor I stared at them. With what hunger. Nervous, they turned away from the girl with the devouring stare and reached for their parents’ hands. I saw their fear, and a hard hand squeezed my lungs until the sky went dark. Then later, in the shop. I on the window seat, between sleep and a nightmare; he, crouched on the floor, stroking my hair, murmuring his incantation, “Hush, it will pass. It’s all right. You’re not alone.”
‘Not Emmeline. Not her. Not her.“
Eventually she was quiet. The curve of her skull pressed into my cheek. Wisps of her hair touched my lips. Against my ribs I could feel her little flutters of breath, the tender convulsions in her lungs. Her hands were very cold in mine.
She squeezed her eyes shut, began to sway and shook her head from side to side. I have seen the same movement in animals in zoos when hey have been driven mad by their captivity. Beginning to fear the renewal of her agony, I remembered what it was that my father used to do to console me when I was a child. Gently, tenderly, I stroked her hair until, soothed, she came to rest her head on my shoulder.
The convulsions did not stop, nor the cries become less painful, but they gradually became less violent. She had time between each new paroxysm to take in desperate, shuddering breaths of air.
Miss Winter’s mouth gaped and grimaced, contorted into wild, ugly shapes by the grief that was too big for it.
‘You’re not alone. I’m with you.“
We sat in silence for minutes. I pulled the shawl up and arranged it more warmly around her shoulders, and tried to rub some warmth into her hands. Her face was ravaged. She could scarcely see out of her swollen eyelids, and her lips were sore and cracked. The birth of a bruise marked the spot where her head had been shaken against the desk.
“Excuse me…” Judith began, and stopped. She pressed her lips tight, then with an uncharacteristic flutter of the hands, “The doctor is already out on a call—he won’t be here for an hour. Please…” I belted my dressing gown and followed; Judith was half running a few paces ahead. We went up and down flights of stairs, turned into passages and corridors, arrived back on the ground floor but in a part of the house I hadn’t seen before. Finally we came to a series of rooms that I took to be Miss Winter’s private suite. We paused before a closed door, and Judith gave me a troubled look. I well understood her anxiety, from behind the door there came deep, inhuman sounds, bellows of pain interrupted by jagged gasps for breath. Judith opened the final door and we went in.
A harsh, atonal scraping of air over vocal cords. Jarring wails that veered into frighteningly animal moans. Her shoulders heaved and crashed and her torso shuddered; the force traveled through her frail neck to her head, along her arms into her hands, which jolted against the desktop. Judith hurried to replace a cushion beneath Miss Winter’s temple; Miss Winter, utterly possessed by the crisis, seemed not to know we were there.
My question caused her one last spasm of pain, but when she spoke, she was unequivocal.
“Who, then?”
I was astonished. No wonder the noise reverberated so! Unlike the rest of the house, with its overstuffed upholstery, lavish drapes, baffled alls and tapestries, thiswas a spare and naked little room. The walls were bare plaster, the floor simple boards. A plain bookcase in the corner was stuffed with piles of yellowing paper, and in the corner stood a narrow bed with simple white covers. At the window a calico curtain hung limply each side of the panes, letting the night in. Slumped over a plain little school desk, with her back to me, was Miss Winter. Gone were her fiery orange and resplendent purple. She was dressed in a white long-sleeved chemise, and she was weeping.
‘There. There now.“
Sometime later, Dr. Clifton came. When I turned to see him in the doorway I got the feeling that he may have been there for some time already. I slipped past him on my way out, and there was something in his expression I did not know how to read.
‘Hush, hush, I know.“ I placed an arm across her shoulder, drew her two hands into mine. Shrouding her body with my own, I bent my ear close to her head and went on with the incantation. ”It’s all right. It will pass. Hush, child. You’re not alone.“ I rocked her and soothed her and never stopped breathing the magic words. They were not my own words, but my father’s. Words that I knew would work, because they had always worked for me. ”Hush,“ I whispered. ”I know. It will pass.“
‘I’ve never seen her like this before,“ Judith said, fingers pressed to her lips. And with a rising note of panic, ”I don’t know what to do.“
The safety catch? Was that what she had said? “Was it your sister who interfered with the safety catch? ” It seems a brutal question now, but at the time, with that flood of tears having swept all etiquette away, the directness did not feel out of place.
‘It’s all right,“ I said to Judith. It was an agony I knew. I drew up a chair and sat down beside Miss Winter.
‘He was a good man,“ I said. ”A good man. And he loved you.“ Slowly she nodded. Her mouth quivered. Had she tried to say something? Again her lips moved.
