“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 ba 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 uood her ay, from behind the door there came deep, inhuman sounds, bellows of pain interrupted by jagged gasps for breath. Judith opehe final door and we went in.
I was astonished. No wohe noise reverberated so! Uhe rest of the house, with its overstuffed upholstery, lavish drapes, baffled alls and tapestries, this are and naked little room. The walls were bare plaster, the floor simple boards. A plain bookcase in the er was stuffed with piles of yellowing paper, and in the er 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 bae, was Miss Winter. Gone were her fiery e and resple purple. She was dressed in a white long-sleeved chemise, and she was weeping.
A harsh, atonal scraping of air over vocal cords. Jarring wails that veered inthteningly animal moans. Her shoulders heaved and crashed aorso shuddered; the force traveled through her frail o her head, along her arms into her hands, which jolted against the desktop. Judith hurried to replace a cushioh Miss Winter’s temple; Miss Winter, utterly possessed by the crisis, seemed not to knoere there.
‘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.“
Miss Winter’s mouth gaped and grimaced, torted into wild, ugly shapes by the grief that was too big for it.
‘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.
‘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 a on with the intation. ”It’s all right. It will pass. Hush, child. You’re not alone.“ I rocked her and soothed her and opped 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.“
The vulsions did not stop, nor the cries bee less painful, but they gradually became less violent. She had time between eaew paroxysm to take in desperate, shuddering breaths of air.
‘You’re not alone. I’m with you.“
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 vulsions in her lungs. Her hands were very cold in mine.
‘There. There now.“
We sat in sileninutes. I pulled the shawl up and arra 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.
‘He was a
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