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chamber was hot from the ovens below. I was sweating beneath
my coif, and could not warm the hand which held hers.
I had not her warmth.
Alice asked me not to go. I put the cord aside and stayed. When
the midwife wanted room, I moved; when she wanted cloth, I
brought it. Matthew came up and knelt beside his wife. She tried to
lift her hand to his cheek and he held it there for her.
The child lived long enough to make one little sound. We could not
make him cry again. His mother died before the candles were
brought.
I held him while the women went to her. He was wrapped as
Agnes’s son had been wrapped. I kept waiting for him to move.
Elizabeth stopped. From somewhere upstairs came the sound of a door shutting. She knew Jane was resting, that Charles was with her, that Mrs. Talbot expected several more days before she would be wanted. None of that allowed Elizabeth to pass easily to the next sentence.
Mrs. Reynolds waited until she could continue.
At home my mother asked what had happened. I told her
everything except the cold. Then I told that, too.
My mistress spoke against her husband and his house. But Alice
had never harmed her, nor had the child. I loved my mistress. I
will not write that she did no harm merely because I loved her.
I have kept the cord with this account. I did not pull it tight against
Alice. I did not use the turn my mistress made upon the common. I
opened it, and the cold remained.
If another woman learns what I could not, let her know that.
Elizabeth laid her hands flat upon the desk.
“She wished somebody to read it,” Mrs. Reynolds said.
“Yes.” Elizabeth looked at the cord. “And she has told us that opening the thread is not enough.”
She had expected an error she could learn to avoid. Mara had known the movement. Alice and her child had died with the cord lying open beside them.
“Stay beside me, please.”
Mrs. Reynolds put a hand upon the back of her chair. Elizabeth touched the old cord with one finger.
Cold pressed into her hand, tightening along the fingers until she drew a sharp breath. She lifted her hand. The feeling ceased.
