As I dropped his hand, thin as a bird’s foot, and turned to my mother I thought I saw, passing like a light across her face, a look of pity and regret; but perhaps I only imagined it for immediately she smiled and said, “See how peaceful he is.”

Mrs. Henderson covered his face with the sheet and, turning, hid my face from him in an embrace. I could feel her bosom rising and falling tranquilly as she murmured, “There, there, the little fellow’s better off now God has taken him. Just you rest a little, pet, and then you go over to my house and stay until I come.” But in the other room, while she was comforting me, my mother was admitting Dr. Galbraith and I heard his voice, curiously cleared of its stammer: “What charming work you’re holding there, ma’am. I had no idea my little patient’s mother was an artist.”

“My son is dead.”

“Oh, I didn’t know! It must have been only a few minutes ago.”

“In there,” she said. “I was just making a poultice—you see I had everything ready, when suddenly he cried out and I went to him. He died in my arms.”

“God bless you.”

My mother began to cry softly. “I tried!”

I did not ponder then what she meant. I leaned against Mrs. Henderson and breathed in, with the sweet, herbal odor of the benzoin, still bubbling futilely, the smell of her freshly ironed cotton dress.

“You run along, Sonie. Get Sarah to make you some lemon verbena. It’ll rest you.”

I did not want to leave her, for I was protected by her kindly, corseted body in its pale blue dress printed with little white flowers. The moment I released myself, I would see Ivan and know that he was dead. I was broken suddenly and I sobbed against the cotton, “Oh, Mrs. Henderson, my wrist hurts where I burned it!”

FIVE

1

Over the place where Ivan’s cot had been and where now there was nothing but a rag rug with four square indentations, the smell of benzoin still hovered faintly. The snow from the storm had melted and a dense fog enveloped Chichester. All day, from early morning, we had heard the solemn foghorns. My mother and I sat silent before the stove in the afternoon. Her face was overcast and I believed that when she had wailed to Dr. Galbraith, “I tried!” she had meant, “I tried to love him.” For in the night, sleepless for both of us, she had murmured, “My tears are all gone, Sonie,” as though all the springs of her being, save her love for me, had been drained, perhaps long before his birth.