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“Like the other glimpses?” the housekeeper asked.

“I think so. I saw nothing. I felt what she described.”

She touched it again, this time calling the warmth. The cold returned. She could warm her own palm, but the remembered pressure continued until she took her finger away.

“I cannot reach Alice,” she said. “Whatever I do here, I cannot change what happened in that room.”

Mrs. Reynolds covered the cord with a clean sheet.

Elizabeth looked toward the door. “But Jane is here.”

They found her asleep in the little sitting room, a book open upon her lap. Charles had gone to speak to the steward. Elizabeth knelt beside the chair and laid her left hand upon Jane’s wrist. She brought the fresh thread from her workbag with the other.

Warmth came readily. The turn was awkward with only one hand, but she opened it as she had practised. Nothing opposed her. The thread slipped free and lay across her fingers.

Jane stirred. Elizabeth closed her right hand over the linen.

“Lizzy? Did I call you?”

“No. You have dropped your place.”

“Only by a page, I hope.” Jane smiled drowsily and let her sister recover the book. “Your hands are warm. Stay a little.”

Elizabeth stayed until Jane slept again. In the passage she showed Mrs. Reynolds the loose thread.

“It opened. I felt nothing answer it. No cold, no pressure.”

“Perhaps there was nothing to release.”

“Perhaps. But I cannot tell Jane I have made her safe because a piece of thread opened when nothing resisted it.”

She looked back at the door. Elspeth’s words had named women brought to bed. Mara had felt the cold during Alice’s labour. There might be nothing she could reach until then.

“We shall try again,” she said. “And I must learn to keep the warmth when somebody wants an answer. Jane woke, and I lost it at once.”

Mrs. Reynolds held out her hand. “You may begin with me.”

Chapter Forty-Four

MARTHA ARRIVED FOR Anna’s first night with a basket which appeared to contain provisions for a much longer stay.

Darcy took it from her. A familiar blanket and pillow filled most of the basket, with clothes and Anna’s wooden ring tucked beside them.

“I did not know what you would have already,” Martha said.

“Then you were right to bring them.”

Ruth followed with Anna. The child looked toward the open door, where Reynolds waited, and made an impatient sound when the adults did not immediately carry her inside.

“She knows the way now,” Martha said.

Darcy was pleased by that. He was sufficiently wary of his own pleasure to say only that the rooms were ready.

They went up to the warm nursery. Martha’s room was across the passage; Ruth’s chamber opened beside Anna’s.

Martha looked about before removing her bonnet.

“It is very comfortable.”