Ay, 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 bee of Aurelius? And what have I doo Emmeline? More than all the rest it is her distraught face that torments my sce when it begins its slow ast out of sleep.
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 speak, sleep overwhelms me again.
The sed time I woke up, Miss Winter was at my bedside, book in hand. Her chair lump 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.
Hearing me move, she lifted her head from her reading.
‘Dr. Clifton has been. You had a very high temperature.“
I said nothing.
‘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.“
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.
‘How did you know it was my birthday?“
‘You told us. While you were sleeping. When are you going to tell me your story, Margaret?“
‘Me? I haven’t got a story,“ I said.
‘Of course you have. Everybody has a story.“
‘Not me.“ I shook my head. In my head I heard indistinct echoes of words I may have spoken in my sleep.
Miss Winter placed the ribbon at her page and closed the book.
‘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 ba them, but you ’t say you haven’t got them. Same goes for stories. So,“ she cluded, ”everybody has a story. When are you going to tell me yours?“
‘I’m not.“
She put her head to one side and waited for me to go on.
‘I’ve old anyone my story. If I’ve got ohat is. And I ’t see any reason to ge now.“
‘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 enviro for stories. They need words. Without them they grow pale, si and die. And then they haunt you.“ Her eyes swiveled bae. ”Believe me, Margaret. I know.“
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 disappoi at seeing my leavings, yet she never mentio. I was in no pain—no headache, no chills, no siess—unless you t profound weariness and a remorse that weighed heavily in my head and in my heart. What had I doo Emmeline? And Aurelius? In my waking hours I was tormented by the memory of that night; the guilt pursued me into sleep.
‘How is Emmeline?“ I asked Judith. ”Is she all right?“
Her answers were i: Why should I be worried about Miss Emmeline when I oorly myself? Miss Emmeline had not been right for a very long time. Miss Emmeline was getting on in years.
Her reluce to spell it out told me everything I wao know. Emmeline was
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