Page 213

Jane spoke her name, and Elizabeth answered without stopping.

“Yes. I am listening.”

“Will you tell me when it is morning?”

“As soon as I see the light.”

She looked toward the window. It was still dark. When she returned her eyes to her hands, the opening had remained.

Elizabeth brought the free end toward it.

Chapter Fifty-Four

THE END OF the thread passed beneath the turn.

Elizabeth felt the cold gather against her left hand. For an instant the linen upon her right seemed about to draw tight again, dragging the small opening closed before she could complete the movement.

She kept the warmth.

Jane stirred beneath her palm. Mrs. Talbot said something to Reynolds, who went to the other side of the bed. Elizabeth heard the words without turning toward them. She could attend to what happened in the room and still remain with the work beneath her hands.

The strand moved a little farther.

It would have been so easy to pull the last of it through. She wanted the linen straight, the pressure gone, the thing finished. Her fingers ached from keeping the opening while the cold pressed against it.

She loosened her grip instead.

The free end rested across her palm. Her thumb guided it through the space she had preserved, slowly enough that she could feel every change in the pressure. Her left hand stayed against Jane, giving the warmth she had lost upon the earlier attempts.

“Loose the binding,” she whispered.

The words accompanied the work. They could not perform it for her.

She had reached this point before: a thread nearly freed, her whole attention upon the last movement. This time she looked at Jane.

Her sister’s eyes were closed. A small line had formed between her brows. Elizabeth had seen that expression over difficult sewing and letters which must be answered kindly when the writer had made kindness very difficult. She loved the face without needing it composed or smiling.

The warmth continued through her palm.

The last of the strand slipped free.

Cold struck across her fingers, sharp enough to make her catch her breath. She did not withdraw from Jane. The old pressure tried to close the thread again, but there was no turn left for it to draw tight. Elizabeth held the linen loose and kept the warmth passing into her sister’s arm.

For one dreadful moment, nothing yielded.

Then the pressure broke.

The thread dropped across her right palm. Her fingers opened without resistance. Beneath her left hand she felt Jane’s skin, the warmth of the room, and the warmth she herself continued to give. The draining cold had ceased.

Elizabeth remained perfectly still.

When she touched Mara’s cord, the remembered cold had ended because she took her hand away. She had not taken her hand from Jane. The fresh thread lay where the old binding had pressed against it, and nothing drew it closed.

She waited through another breath, then another.

Jane moved her arm. Elizabeth moved with her. There was no grip beneath the contact, no cold taking back what she gave. The warmth passed freely.

Mrs. Talbot came nearer.