‘Mm.“
‘Everybody has a story. It’s like families. You might not know who they are, might have lost them, but they exist all the same. You might drift apart or you might turn your back on them, but you can’t say you haven’t got them. Same goes for stories. So,“ she concluded, ”everybody has a story. When are you going to tell me yours?“
‘Hm-m.“
The second time I woke up, Miss Winter was at my bedside, book in hand. Her chair was plump with velvet cushions, as always, but with her tufts of pale hair around her naked face, she looked like a naughty child who has climbed onto the queen’s throne for a joke.
Anxiety, sharp as one of Miss Winter’s green gazes, needles me awake. What name have I pronounced in my sleep? Who undressed me and put me to bed? What will they have read into the sign on my skin? What has become of Aurelius? And what have I done to Emmeline? More than all the rest it is her distraught face that torments my conscience when it begins its slow ascent out of sleep.
‘Dr. Clifton has been. You had a very high temperature.“
I was baffled by his questions, but compelled by the gravity of his gaze, nodded once again.
‘I thought so.“
I reached for the prescription. In a vigorous scrawl, he had inked: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes. Take ten pages, twice a day, till end of course.
Stonily I regarded him. “I wouldn’t.”
He removed the thermometer from my mouth, folded his arms and delivered his diagnosis. “You are suffering from an ailment that afflicts ladies of romantic imagination. Symptoms include fainting, weariness, loss of appetite, low spirits. While on one level the crisis can be ascribed to wandering about in freezing rain without the benefit of adequate waterproofing, the deeper cause is morelikely to be found in some emotional trauma. However, unlike the heroines of your favorite novels, your constitution has not been weakened by the privations of life in earlier, harsher centuries. No tuberculosis, no childhood polio, no unhygienic living conditions. You’ll survive.”
I’m so sorry about what happened. I never meant to hurt anyone. I was mad, wasn’t I?
‘Of course you have. Everybody has a story.“
Dear Aurelius,Are you all right?
‘And Jane Eyre?“
She put her head to one side and waited for me to go on.
“Wuthering Heights—you’ve read that?”
‘We didn’t know it was your birthday,“ she went on. ”We couldn’t find a card. We don’t go in much for birthdays here. But we brought you some daphne from the garden.“
‘I’m not.“
‘I have no appetite.“
Her reluctance to spell it out told me everything I wanted to know. Emmeline was not well. It was my fault.
MargaretIt would have to do.
When I wake I do not know what day or time it is. Judith is there; she sees me stir and holds a glass to my lips. I drink. Before I can speak, sleep overwhelms me again.
He turned and looked gravely at me. “And I suppose you’ve read these books more than once?”
‘Exactly. Your appetite will come back. But you must meet it halfway. You must want it to come.“
‘I see,“ she said softly, nodding her head as though she really did. ”Well, it’s your business, of course.“ She turned her hand in her lap and stared into her damaged palm. ”You are at liberty to say nothing, if that is what you want. But silence is not a natural environment for stories. They need words. Without them they grow pale, sicken and die. And then they haunt you.“ Her eyes swiveled back to me. ”Believe me, Margaret. I know.“
Once more I nodded, and his frown deepened.
Her answers were indirect: Why should I be worried about Miss Emmeline when I was poorly myself? Miss Emmeline had not been right for a very long time. Miss Emmeline was getting on in years.
It was my turn to frown.
‘Read and reread? Many times?“
‘Appetite comes by eating,“ I translated.
‘How did you know it was my birthday?“
‘Not me.“ I shook my head. In my head I heard indistinct echoes of words I may have spoken in my sleep.
I nodded and he frowned.
‘Treatment is not complicated: eat, rest and take this…“—he made quick notes on a pad, tore out a page and placed it on my bedside table—”and the weakness and fatigue will be gone in a few days.“ Reaching for his case, he stowed his pen and paper. Then, rising to leave, he hesitated. ”I’d like to ask you about these dreams of yours, but I suspect you wouldn’t like to tell me…“
‘You told us. While you were sleeping. When are you going to tell me your story, Margaret?“
He looked me straight in the eyes, and I was unable to slide my gaze away when he said, “You don’t eat enough.”
I nodded three times.
As for Aurelius, the only thing I could do was write. As soon as I was able, I had Judith bring me pen and paper and, propped up on a pillow, drafted a letter. Not satisfied, I attempted another and then another. Never had I had such difficulty with words. When my bedcover was so strewn with rejected versions that I despaired at myself, I selected one at random and made a neat copy:
Miss Winter placed the ribbon at her page and closed the book.
Hearing me move, she lifted her head from her reading.
When can I see you?
Are we still friends?
‘Since childhood?“
For long stretches of time I slept, and whenever I woke, there was some invalid’s meal by my bed, prepared by Judith. I ate a mouthful or two, no more. When Judith came to take the tray away she could not disguise her disappointment at seeing my leavings, yet she never mentioned it. I was in no pain—no headache, no chills, no sickness—unless you count profound weariness and a remorse that weighed heavily in my head and in my heart. What had I done to Emmeline? And Aurelius? In my waking hours I was tormented by the memory of that night; the guilt pursued me into sleep.
“Sense and Sensibility?”
“L’appetit vient en mangeant.”
Beneath his dark brow his eyes narrowed to slits. I could quite see how he might frighten his patients into getting well, just to be rid of him.
He took a thermometer and instructed me to place it under my tongue, then rose and strode to the window. With his back to me, he asked, “And what do you read?”
People look different from close up. A dark brow is still a dark brow, but you can see the individual hairs in it, how nearly they are aligned. The last few brow hairs, veryfine, almost invisible, strayed off in the section of his temple, pointed to the snail-coil of his ear. In the grain his skin were closely arranged pinpricks of beard. There it was again: that almost imperceptible flaring of the nostrils, that twitch at the edge the mouth. I had always taken it for severity, a clue that he thought little of me; but now, seeing it from so few inches away, it occurred to me that it might not be disapproval after all. Was it possible, I thought, that Dr. Clifton was secretly laughing at me?
‘I’ve never told anyone my story. If I’ve got one, that is. And I can’t seeany reason to change now.“
I said nothing.
‘Me? I haven’t got a story,“ I said.
‘Mm-hmm.“
‘How is Emmeline?“ I asked Judith. ”Is she all right?“
With the thermometer in my mouth I could not reply.
Dr. Clifton came. He listened to my heart and asked me lots of questions. “Insomnia? Irregular sleep? Nightmares?”
From the door he saluted me and was gone.
In the vase were dark branches, bare of leaf, but with dainty purple flowers all along their length. They filled the air with a sweet, heady fragrance.
And then he leaned close to me to read the thermometer.
His face fell. “Thought not.”
